Qass 
Book 




\~^ ! 



Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/knowingfeelingcoOOsmit 







KNOWING AND FEELING. 



K^^OWmG AJ^D FEEL^G 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 



By WILLIAM SMITH. 



mit^ a Memoir. 



FOE PEIVATE CIECULATION. 

1874. 









PRIXTEI) BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY, 
AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS. 



PREFACE. 

Of the following papers three have appeared in 
The Contemporary Revieio ; the fourth was left in MS. 
I am not sure that it had received the writer's final 
revision, or that I have throughout deciphered it 
correctly. But I think that to those for whom this 
volume is intended it will add to the interest of the 
unfinished work. 



CONTENTS. 



KNOWma AND FEELING; A CONTRIBUTION TO 

PSYCHOLOGY- 
PAGE 
PartL ........ 1 

IT. SOME FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THE WILL, . 37 

III. SPECULATIVE THOUGHT, .... 63 

IV. OUR PASSIONS, . . . . .94 

MEMOIR, . . 125 

APPENDIX, 247 

PHOTOGRAPHS— 

As A Child, ...... forcing 130 

Bust, ,,167 



KJN'OWING AND FEELING: 

A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYGHOLOaY. 



PAET I. 

To one fresh from physiological studies Psychology 
is seldom acceptable. Indeed, our mental philosophy 
is now accustomed to the language of apology, and 
generally presents herself with some preliminary word 
to justify her appearance at all. 

The physiologist is plainly in the ascendant. Let us 
do honour to his discoveries ; let us confess that it is 
in his department alone that we can look forward 
here to what can properly be called discovery. I can 
understand and forgive the somewhat petulant mood 
in which he occasionally speaks of the psychologist, 
or metaphysician; — for he is apt to confound them 
together, regarding them as the same creature in 
different stages of development, in which, I think, he 
is far from being wrong. He looks upon our self- 
examinant, turning his mind in upon itself, as some, 
pensive idler, sitting apart with finger on his brow, 
revolving what has been a thousand times revolved 
before, and to no earthly purpose. Perhaps he pictures 



2 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

him as one who ducks his head beneath the stream, 
and, in that position, looks upward to its source. Whilst 
he, the man of science, and the free observer of the 
whole course of things, is busy in the dissecting-room, 
tracing the threads of that delicate machinery by means 
of which the world of space, the world of form, and 
force, and motion, transforms itself, through the sensi- 
bilities of a man, into a world of thought, of beauty, 
of intelligence. By ingeniously devised experiments 
he is extorting an answer to his questions from Nature 
herself. 

I can excuse his impatience. I, for my part, have 
no wish to plague him with my psychology. If he is a 
phrenologist, or working in that direction, he will have 
to plague himself with a somewhat elaborate system of 
psychology ; else how name his organs, or even know 
what organ to seek ] If he has arrived at the con- 
clusion — the conclusion of some of the most eminent 
anatomists — that the brain, as organ of consciousness, 
complex though it be, may still be considered as 
one organ — he will probably have wrought out for 
himself some scheme not unlike that of which I am 
about to give the outline. In any case, the intelligent 
physiologist has, doubtless, knowledge enough of this 
kind to guide him in his experiments, and enable him 
to interpret their results. Perhaps it is well that he 
should not be zealously devoted to any one system of 
psychology, that he may remain unbiassed in his obser- 
vations, and both see and describe his facts in as dry a 
light as possible. 

It appears to me as certain as to him that we do, in 
fact, step from organic life into consciousness. (I must 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 3 

leave others to determine whether what are called 
purely vital phenomena are not a higher order of 
physical phenomena, resolvable into chemistry, electri- 
city, and the like. I may be permitted to speak of 
physical, vital, mental facts as three distinct orders.) 
Some vital or organic function seems to precede, and 
perhaps to follow, every manifestation of mind. There 
ean hardly, therefore, be a branch of study of greater 
interest than that which traces the connexion between 
physical or purely vital properties and psychical pro- 
perties. But these last, which in their nature are clearly 
distinct from the physical or vital properties on which 
they are grafted, can define themselves only to the man 
reflecting on them. This reflection on ourselves is simply 
indispensable. We can know ourselves as conscious 
beings in no other way. This very self, this personality, 
this / that rings for ever through human speech, belongs 
essentially to the consciousness. What my conscious- 
ness rests on is a distinct and specific inquiry. It may 
rest on the brain ; the brain destroyed it may cease ; 
but while it exists it carries within it its own per- 
sonality. The light of thought may go out when the 
lamp is shattered, but while it burns, tMt, and not the 
lamp, is the self; the / of human speech. Whether 
thought and feeling rest directly on the brain or on 
some intermediate substance we call spirit, shall be an 
open question if you will ; but the personality lies in 
thought itself. It lies, as I take it, in the union of 
memory and anticipation. It is thought embracing the 
present, the past, the future, travelling on for ever — 
an ever-present thought, that embraces a future that 
will be past, and a past which has been future. I have 



4 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

been, I shall be, are but the past and future seen con- 
stantly in the present. 

Be that as it may, mind as it is in itself must be 
studied in the mind. A curious sophistical objection 
has been lately raised against the process of reflection, 
or self-examination, which perhaps should be noticed^ 
since it has been paraded with an air of confidence by 
ardent supporters of the "physiological method," and 
claims the authority of Auguste Comte. " In order to 
observe," it is said, " your intellect must pause from 
activity; yet it is the very activity you want to observe. 
If you cannot effect the pause you cannot observe ; 
if you do effect it there is nothing to observe." 

ISTow it is plain that we cannot think of any subject 
of personal or scientific interest, and be, at that same 
instant, occupied in self-criticism or self-inspection. 
But the very next instant we may find ourselves re- 
viving our past thoughts and feelings, and noticing 
some peculiarity in them as thought and feeling. A man 
accustomed to self-observation finds himself repeatedly 
summoning back his experiences, his emotions, or ideas, 
asking himself perhaps by what process they came into 
his mind. The moral man exercises this self-inspection 
for a moral purpose, to detect the insidious aj)proaches 
of some besetting passion ; the psychologist for his 
psychological purpose, to compare and discriminate his 
feelings, or detect his laws of association. There is no 
pause in the activity of the mind, but this purpose gives 
it a new direction. It is a method of inquiry perfectly 
valid. That it needs to be supplemented by other 
methods will be readily acknowledged. 

I intimated that the distinction often drawn between 



A CONTKIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. , 5 

the psychologist and the metaphysician was one of a 
somewhat fallacious description. It is quite true that 
a writer or lecturer may discourse instructively on 
memory or judgment, imagination or reasoning, and 
not plunge himself into those abstruse discussions about 
being, cause, or the absolute, which are set apart by 
some as the especial domain of metaphysics or onto- 
logy. He may choose his illustrations from the com- 
mon affairs of life. But, on the other hand, there are 
some topics which the psychologist cannot avoid, and 
which carry him, whether he will or not, into the 
domain of the metaphysician. One of his earliest 
subjects, our perception of the external world, cannot 
be pursued without leading into these very discussions 
of substance or being. How will he define his matter? 
If he calls it phenomenal, the very name suggests the 
dreaded noumenon. Will he give two substances, matter 
and spirit, defined each by their properties 1 Will he 
speak only of properties, and carry us down — or up — 
to the one absolute and self-existent from which all 
evolves, or by whom all is created 1 Some theory he 
seems compelled to form. Psychology expands into a 
system of philosophy. It is always the vestibule to 
any structure of this kind we may raise. 



I ask myself what it is to be conscious 1 or, in other 
words, what is the simplest form of mind 1 

If an animal moved when touched — if the stimulant 
that set the animal in motion was clearly a sensation, and 
if we rested there — if the animal were merely sensitive, 
and a series of movements were simply initiated by a sen- 



6 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

sation, if it never rose to any knowledge of its own move- 
ments, of its own body, of the relation of that body to 
other bodies — if, in short, it were utterly destitute of 
cognition or knowledge of any kind, should we say that 
it was conscious 1 Assuredly not. We should have 
before us a kind of vital mechanism, whose co-ordinated 
movements were stimulated by sensation, but we should 
not have before us a voluntary agent or a conscious 
creature. Desire would be absent, for desire implies 
certain elementary cognitions. It might move to this, 
or from that, but there would be no consciousness of a 
to OY from, a this or that. 

Evidently, therefore, in addition to vital movement 
and sensibility, a creature must have knowledge before 
we pronounce it to be conscious. It is not in pure and 
isolated sensation that the psychologist can find his 
starting-point. There is no such thing in the con- 
sciousness. He starts from a perception or cognition 
of some kind — sensations held together by the rela- 
tions of time or space. 

I accept the current definition of knowledge or cog- 
nition. It is a perception of relation. And for this 
perception of relation I can select no better word than 
that of judgment. It has been already used in this 
wide and technical sense. Sensibilities and judgments 
are the two elements that form the simplest state of 
consciousness. Nor are there any others in the most 
complex. The relations of time, space, and contrast 
between sensations themselves as pleasurable and pain- 
ful, are the earliest that arise. The simplest state of 
consciousness is both a knowing and a feeling ; a know- 
ing so far that there is some relation apprehended, and 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 7 

a feeling so far that there is some sensation felt, plea- 
surable or painful : for I demur to the supposition that 
there can be sensations absolutely neutral. As sensi- 
bilities and judgments form our perceptions, and as 
these enter into our relations in thought, forming what 
we call new objects of thought ; and as these new ob- 
jects, or ideas, are themselves the source of new or 
modified feelings and emotions (a higher order of sen- 
sibility), it is plain that our two great elements of 
judgment and feeling can never be absent from our 
consciousness. 

A sharp twinge of pain, I may be told, is assuredly 
a consciousness. I am assuredly conscious of it. But 
alone it would not form a state of consciousness; it 
must be connected, as it invariably is, with other sen- 
sations, forming some perceptive state : it is felt here 
or there, has a before and after. A twinge of pain, 
however sharp, quite isolated in a vital frame, would 
not be an instance of consciousness. 

I can think of an isolated sensation. But I do this 
by contrasting it with sensations not isolated. I can 
imagine it. But if I myself, so far as my mental attri- 
butes are concerned, consisted of nothing but this 
isolated sensation, I should not be a conscious creature. 

The senses and the memory — which as a mere repe- 
tition of sensations has justly been called an internal 
sense — these give us consciousness by reason of some 
perceived relations that hold them together. To hold 
together what is different — the several in the one con- 
sciousness — is of the essence of mind. The mental 
unit, if such an expression may be used, always consists 
of terms and a relation. We cannot in our earliest 



8 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

perceptions separate the two : we are compelled to 
recognise them as both complex and indivisible. 

Where, in fact, should we find such a thing as a 
solitary or isolated sensation 1 The structure of all the 
higher animals is such that if you awaken one sensi- 
bility you awaken others also, and these sensibilities 
belong to some central organ, in which they are not 
only felt, but felt together, and felt as different. A 
smell seems as simple a sensation, as we can imagine, 
but a smell brings into play the muscles of the nose, 
and prompts to some movement of the head. Most 
sensations prompt to movement of some kind, and that 
before we move for a purpose, and there is that con- 
sensus or co-ordination in our movements, that the sen- 
sations accompanying many muscular contractions may 
be introduced by the slightest excitement. A pleasant 
taste, one of the earliest pleasures of the infant, is in- 
evitably connected with the movement of the lips and 
the tongue. Sight, which is distributed so largely 
through the animal creation, and is manifested so early 
in most animals, is not only no solitary sensation, but 
is not even a number of sensations of different colours. 
Explain vision by what theory we will, it consists of 
form traced in different lights outside the hody of the 
creature who sees ; and therefore the knowledge of the 
body, as introduced by other senses, must co-exist in 
the consciousness, and form part of what we call vision. 
This is not a case of association of ideas, or law of 
habit; sight appears in many animals too soon to 
admit of this explanation ; we have simply a confluence 
, of sensations and perceptions, forming this new cogni- 
tion or perception. Touch, again, as mere sensation, 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 9 

may be a pleasure or a pain ; but as a perception, as it 
actually enters into our consciousness, it comes, as is 
universally admitted, -with other sensations traceable 
to muscular contraction. What passes in that central 
organ which converts these various sensations into per- 
ceptions, into cognitions, into a consciousness '? I know 
not. We only know that the togetlier of sensations and 
repetitions of sense result in what we call a judgment, 
a perceived relation, an object of cognition. 

I do not care to perplex myself with the question 
whether there are any animals so framed as to be 
sensitive only, and not conscious, not cognitive. A low 
order of animalculae, mere cells, borne hither and 
thither by the medium in which they float ; or even 
larger creatures, like our jelly-fish, may be endowed 
with a certain dull sensibility as their only psychical 
quality. But the animal which has any of our special 
senses, and which has to seek its food, must have, we 
should say, cognition as well as sensibility. 

Sensations held together in the one consciousness — 
the together of the different — implying a judgment, a 
relation perceived, this is the most elementary form of 
mind. liot the solitary nerve, but the ganglion with 
its nerves stretching here and there, is the type of our 
simplest consciousness. The relation perceived is a 
fundamental fact — fundamental as sensation itself, with 
which it is connected, — and is the foundation of all . 
our knowledge. 

II. 

There are writers of great repute who, as the last 
result of their analysis, find sensation to be the sole 



10 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

element of mind. Sensations, the memory and antici- 
pation of sensations, and laws of association, forming 
new groups of such memories- — these suffice to build up 
the mind of man. The sense of contrast, they consider 
as involved in sensibility itself. Without change sen- 
sibility cannot be prolonged. First to feel, and then 
remember the change, is all that is needed for what I 
have called the perception of the relation of contrast. 
To remember change is to remember successions also — 
there is the relation of time : judgment is reduced to 
memory. At all events, these two judgments, contrast 
and succession, seem easily resolved into sensation and 
memory, and these two, they think, will suffice, with 
the aid of certain subtle laws of association, to con- 
struct the consciousness. 

But in this account we have not, I apprehend, 
resolved judgment into memory, but have, in fact, 
introduced this new element under the name, and as a 
part, of memory. The knowledge of a succession of 
sensations, it will be admitted, is something very 
different from the succession itself — the mere flux and 
change of sensibilities. Therefore the memory is 
introduced to bring back into one consciousness a 
portion of this flowing succession. Originally each 
sensibility had vanished when its successor appeared, 
but in memory the procession, or part of it, is brought 
back, and antecedent and sequent perceived as such. 
But if this be so, we have introduced into the memory 
a quite new element which did not exist in sensation. 
If the memory were a mere reproduction of the original 
flux of sensibilities, it, too, would still be the same 
flowing succession, where each ripple was gone when, 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 1 1 

the next came. If we have assigned to the memory 
this new power of holding together in the one con- 
sciousness what originally was a mere flux of sensi- 
bilities, and so cognising the succession, we have 
simply introduced the element of judgment, or the 
perception of relations as part of memory. 

Memory, when it is something more than a mere 
reproduction, when it implies a knowledge that such 
reproduction belonged to the past, is itself based on a 
judgment. A revived sensibility would in itself be 
only another kind of sensibility. It is relegated to the 
past in a state of consciousness which embraces a 
present also. Consciousness, therefore, so to speak, 
is wider than memory : memory exists in it. 

The relation of contrast appears at first sight to be 
involved in sensibility itself. A state of sensibility, 
speaking physiologically, could not be sustained with- 
out change ; the nerve requires rest, other nerves must 
be brought into action. But here, too, I must repeat 
that the apprehension of the change is something 
different from the actual change itself. If you describe 
the transition as a feeling, and say there is a feeling of 
change, that feeling would pass with others in the same 
unapprehended series, were there nothing but the series. 
Here also you must call in the aid of memory, and 
give to the memory this power of grasping the several 
in one act of consciousness; which power we find 
necessary to all consciousness, whether of the percep- 
tion that manifestly precedes memory, or of that 
thought which is so largely made up of the revived 
past. 

If even these judgments or perceived relations of 



1 2 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

time or succession, and of contrast and similarity, could 
be resolved into mere acts of memory, what are we to 
say to the relations of space or position constituting 
form, or the external appearance "? It is true that the 
utmost subtlety of some of our subtlest thinkers has 
been put in requisition to deduce our idea or know- 
ledge of extension from that of succession in time. In 
England, I believe, Brown first ventured on this hypo- 
thesis. Sir William Hamilton was thought to have 
demolished it, but it has been revived by two, if not 
three, of our most celebrated contemporaries. There 
were good reasons why this effort should be made. In 
the first place, there is a startling incongruity in the 
fact that sensations should be to us the terms of this 
relation — that they should uphold the relation of posi- 
tion even within our own body. What have sensa- 
tions to do with space, as themselves space-occupants ? 
There is a delusion here, and it seems more satisfactory 
to unravel the delusion than to accept it as one forced 
on us by nature. And, secondly, if the relation which 
constitutes form could be deduced from that of succes- 
sion, one great obstacle would be removed to the 
theory I have already glanced at, that builds up the 
intellect out of sensation, and memory, and habit. I 
admit that I ought here to examine this hypothesis 
that deduces extension from succession, as lately put 
forth by Professor Bain and Mr. J. S. Mill, but I must 
defer such examination to another opportunity. It 
would require more room than I could give it ; it 
would require room for many quotations. I must beg 
a verdict against them. I must content myself with 
the counter-assertion (in which the great majority of 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 13 

psychologists agree) that the two relations of time and 
space are fundamentally different, and that neither can 
be deduced from the other. They blend and meet in 
the idea of motion ; but they are always recognised as 
distinct, neither of them admitting of analysis. 

When Kant asserts of space that it is a mode of 
sensibility, he expresses, I presume, the same truth 
that I endeavour to convey by saying that the relation 
of position, or the knowledge of space, is introduced 
directly by our sensations. And when the physiologist 
refers to his nerves of touch and sight, and speaks of 
X^oints of sensation felt, or perceived, at the periphery, 
he does but express the same truth. One sensation 
could not give position. Many do; but how? It 
seems a very familiar fact that the sensation should be 
felt there where the sensitive extremities are, and that a 
number of these tlieres should constitute a form. But it 
is one of those familiar facts which grow more marvel- 
lous and perplexing as we reflect upon them. What 
are the respective parts performed by the nerves and 
the ganglion? Plainly, we have left physical pro- 
perties and are amongst psychical properties, and of 
that character that we have only to state them in 
the best language w^e can select. We find (1.) The 
sensibilities; and (2.) The relation of position per- 
ceived. 

The perception of the relation is here inseparable 
from the concrete in which it appears. A form can 
only be dissected into minuter forms, in each of which 
the same relations of position, of sides and surfaces, 
reappear. When afterwards we compare forms with 
each other and perceive the relation of magnitude, the 



14 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

two terms of the relation can be separately cognised. 
And as this is the case wherever we are accustomed to 
use the word judgment, it seems a strained application 
of the word when we apply it to a case where the 
terms and the relation are inseparable. But no other 
word is more applicable. And it should be remem- 
bered that where the terms are distinct, as where the 
two forms are separate, between which we perceive the 
relation of magnitude, even here the terms and the 
relation form a new whole. We cannot think of mag- 
nitude, which is a matter of comparison, without the 
forms that are compared. We make the abstraction 
of a relation, of which we have had innumerable 
instances, and may speak, if we please, of the idea of 
magnitude. But magnitude itself can never be repre- 
sented in consciousness, but by the two forms and the 
relation. In like manner we can speak of the relation 
of means and end without having before us any specific 
instance of means and an end. But this is an abstrac- 
tion, framed mainly by the aid of language, and for the 
communication of thought ; the relation cannot really 
be brought home to the mind without the terms we 
call means and end. 

If I had been writing this psychological sketch some 
thirty years ago, I might have said that the sensational 
school was well-nigh extinct, and have spared myself 
the labour of contending for a distinct intellectual 
element in the consciousness on which knowledge 
depends. It was the habit then to speak of that 
school as the philosophy of the eighteenth century, as 
if it was already a matter of history. We of the nine- 
teenth century, if not satisfied with what the Scotch 



A COKTKIBUTTON TO PSYCHOLOGY. 15 

professors taught, had gone to Germany for our meta- 
physics. Cousin, for the moment, was the represen- 
tative of France. But the place physiology has lately 
taken in our studies has revived the desire in many for 
the simplest possible scheme of psychology. It seems 
easy to attribute to the brain a variety of sensibilities, 
and if thought is nothing but such sensibilities con- 
nected and revived in memory, there appears no diffi- 
culty in allying it altogether with the brain; the 
transition is rendered conceivable from purely vital 
to mental phenomena. I do not say that all who have 
sought a simple scheme of psychology have been biassed 
by their physiology, or by what are called materialistic 
views. Simplicity is itself at all times a legitimate 
aim of the theorist. And, on the other hand, there are 
many wedded to their physiological method (the phreno- 
logists, for instance), who wield a very complex psycho- 
logy. I merely take notice of a tendency I have 
detected in my own mind. The preconception that 
there is a transition from chemistry to life, and 
from life to consciousness, leads us to favour those 
theories which make such transitions representable to 
the imagination. 

To me the old objection lings in the ear. If know- 
ledge is finally reduced to sensation, this is tantamount 
to there being no knowledge at all, or knowledge only 
of our own sensations. Even the solid world of matter 
fades into a dream. Groups of sensibilities that have 
somehow, in my imagination, transferred themselves to 
space, that I remember and anticipate, that have an 
order in their coming and going — these are my material 
world. I cannot accept of this result, nor of the 



16 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

scheme that leads to it. To me it reads like a de- 
scription of mind with the chief element of mind left 
out. We have no knowledge without sensations ; they 
are the first terms to us of any relation ; but it is in 
the perception of relations, of space, of time, of form 
and force, that knowledge directly rests ; and as know- 
ledge evolves, we come partly to understand how it 
was that we commenced by what seems in itself a 
delusion. The animated creature had but its own 
sensations to give it the first consciousness of itself, or 
the external world. But the forms which sensation 
takes, are immediately invested with other properties, 
by relations perceived . between them^ which alter their 
character, and convert them into independent realities. 

III. 

By insisting on the fundamental distinction between 
Sensibility or Feeling, and Judgment, or the element 
of cognition, I separate myself from the sensationalists, 
who, with Destutt de Tracy, arrive at the conclusion, 
" Penser c'est sentir ;" how do I stand in reference to 
that opposite school of metaphysicians who are desig- 
nated as intuitionists 1 

I cordially embrace the favourite doctrine of modern 
times, that of evolution. I believe there is an order in 
the appearing or becoming of all things, which order 
apparently enters into . the very nature of the things 
themselves. But every new appearance, every new 
becoming, in this order is, in one sense, equally ori- 
ginal. It could not be what it is out of its order, but 
its coming into that order is always a new fact. Most 
of us refer the whole order to the one Being who is 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 1 7 

alone self-existent. Some prefer to rest in the ob- 
served order, not from a conviction that nothing else 
exists, but that human knowledge cannot penetrate 
beyond. To us evolution is but a name for the method 
of creation, and the nature of the created. 

Well, when we apply our doctrine of evolution to 
the human consciousness, what is the meaning of such 
terms as primary and fundamental, to which so much 
honour is by some attached 1 Are we to suppose that 
the first intellectual forms or conceptions, such as issue 
in their order from vital or physical antecedents, are 
especially authoritative, or in any way especially excel- 
lent"? In other departments of nature we are accus- 
tomed to say that the lower appears first as condition 
of the higher, the simpler as the condition of the more 
complex. It is the last development and not the first 
that should receive the highest honour ; or rather it is 
that whole whose harmonized development is carried 
furthest that should be most honoured. It is that 
which will not combine with any harmonized whole 
that we reject as error. This, if not an infallible test 
of truth, will be found to be the actual test which 
every man of necessity applies. 

It is nothing to me to be told that certain savages or 
uncultured men have not this or that idea or intel- 
lectual perception. When it has come, how does it 
enrich, how does it harmonize with the whole of the 
conscious life % This is the question to be asked. I 
am not concerned to build my faith on some primary 
intuition or judgment. Truth is a harmony of many 
judgments. 

In this much debated question of our knowledge of 

B 



1 8 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

the external world, in this objective independent exist- 
ence of matter, it is not to some primary instinct or 
intuition that I should appeal — not to the first, but to 
the last development of intelligence. It is possible 
that if you arrest us at a certain stage in the process a 
charge of delusion might be made out against the 
senses — especially against the sense of sight, for we are 
here certainly presented with appearances which claim 
to be outward realities, and which it required the 
science of optics so to connect with the veritable 
material world, that we are able to pronounce them to 
be representatives of real forms in space. 

Let me be permitted briefly to indicate the steps by 
which I imagine (for we can only here imagine a past 
by the help of such laws of human development as we 
have been able to learn from facts still open to the 
memory), by which I presume our belief in the external 
world was formed. If my statement is correct it will, 
at the same time, relieve us from the perplexities of 
the Idealists, or all those who challenge us to prove 
that our knowledge of matter is essentially anything 
else than a knowledge of our own sensations. 

That our sensations do range themselves to our 
consciousness in space — outside each other as it has been 
expressed — is a fact about which there can be no dis- 
pute, even if we accept the subtle hypothesis that 
originally they were known only as succeeding each 
other in time. But, indeed, I know not how that 
hypothesis can apply to that first localization of sensa- 
tions to which I have to allude, that feeling or per- 
ceiving our sensations within the area of our own 
body ; there, as a physiologist might suggest, where 



A COXTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 19 

the nerves of sensation really extend and ramify. 
Besides the sensations on the surface, the body fills 
with sensations from muscular movement, the flow of 
the blood, or other work of nutrition. I can descend 
to nothing earlier than some knowledge of our own 
body by sensations felt in diff'erent parts of the area of 
that body, contrasting body and limbs, and limb with 
limb. 

It may be well to observe that when I here speak 
of localization of sensations, I do not refer to that act 
of thought which the mature man is so familiar with, 
who saj^s of one sensation it is in his arm, and of 
another it is in his foot. He has already the image in 
his mind of arm and foot, and refers the sensations to 
these well-known limbs. Such localization as this is 
plainly a subsequent process. I speak of that localiza- 
tion by which the knowledge of Hmbs is formed, or 
rather initiated ; so much knowledge as to render 
possible the conceptions of form and movement. I 
cannot but suppose that every animal whose' heait 
beats, and whose limbs involuntarily stir, awakes to a 
consciousness of sensations felt here and there. It does 
not from this primary localization of sensation obtain 
the full knowledge of its limbs. What further know- 
ledge it obtains enters with the knowledge of the 
external, or other body against which it presses. 

The cognition of our limbs as sensitive and moving 
forms is followed, or accompanied, by another most im- 
portant cognition, namely, that the motion of the body 
or limbs is impeded in certain directions, unimpeded in 
other directions. The contrast stands out between a 



20 • KNOWING AND FEELING: 

space that permits and a space that does not permit 
motion. The outstretched arms, the hand with its 
many fingers, these define the impediment in space, 
shape it, shape it into that resisting form we henceforth 
know as matter. The same process gives solidity and 
a more definite form to our own limbs. The little 
infant is seen hammering his own hand into the perfect 
tool it is to become, while he is making acquaintance 
with the objects on which he strikes. 

All these proceedings are attended with vivid sensa- 
tions, both in the muscles of the moving limbs and on 
their touched surface. These sensations combine from 
first to last with that cognition of the outer form in 
space we call material object. But that form is funda- 
mentally a thought, not a sensation. Form, movement, 
resistance to movement, these are intellectual percep- 
tions, what we have called Judgments. Eesistance is 
a relation between a moving form and a portion of 
space that resists movement. That resisting space ig 
shaped out to the consciousness by the continued move- 
ment round it and about it of the sensitive hand. But 
though the sensitive hand is necessary to the cognition, 
the cognition itself is not a sensation, but a relation 
between the hand as a moving object and the obstacle 
in space. 

It is just here, I venture to say, that the analysis 
presented to us (amongst others) by Professor Bain and 
Mr. J. S. Mill is at fault. These writers speak con- 
stantly of the sensation of resistance, as if a muscular 
feeling, somehow or other associated with a space 
beyond the body, constituted the whole of what we call 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 21 

solidity,^ Now Eesistance not only in popular, but in 
strictly scientific language, is a relation only to be got 
at through the prior cognitions of form and motion. It 
means resistance to motion. In itself it is a thought 
or perceived relation. The muscular sensations which 
accompany it, obtain from it the name of feeling of 
resistance. But this feeling in itself would be merely 
a sensation felt under the skin. 

If an analyst persists in limiting our attention to 
sensations alone and ignores that perception of relation 
which constitutes first form, then motion, then resistance 
to motion, he may very easily represent our knowledge 
of matter as, in fact, nothing but the memory or antici- 
pation of sensations. But his representation will always 
wear the air of a paradox. Men will not recognise in 
it an accurate account of their own cognitions. 

But I must proceed another step or two. Not only 
does my body move towards these forms that resist its 
motion — that are known and defined by that resistance, 
as well as clothed in some garment of my own sensa- 
tions, but these bodies so defined move towards my 
body, impinge on it, pleasure it or hurt it. They have 
a motion of their own. They have movement as well 
as resistance to movement, and they too, so moving, 
move other bodies against which they impinge. They 
have force. 

Here, also, if I am arrested at a certain point, I might 

1 " That resistance is only another name for a sensation of our 
muscular frame, combined with one of touch, has been pointed out by- 
many philosophers, and can scarcely any longer be questioned." — 
Mr, J, S. Mill. 

" Of matter as independent of our feeling of resistance we can have 
no conception." — Professor Bain. 



22 KNOAVING AND FEELING : 

have a great difficulty in eliminating the idea of force, 
from sensations and desires of the animated creature. 
For aught I know, a child attributes to every moving 
body, especially if it strikes him, the impulse of desire 
by which he himself moves. But sooner or later a dis- 
tinction is made between the animate and the inani- 
mate. And now when inanimate forms not only strike 
on me, the sensitive, but strike on other inanimate 
forms and the result is movement, is a resistance over- 
come ; the conception of force as extended through 
nature — force as prior to, and independent of, sensa- 
tion — is formed. Our conception of matter may be 
said to be complete. Perhaps resistance which wore 
the appearance of inertia becomes itself considered as a 
force. Force and resistance are regarded as two anta- 
gonist forces, revealing each other. 

Amongst the steps of this process I have not intro- 
duced the sense of vision, because blind people do 
obtain our notion of the solid form in space without 
the aid of vision, and, because I should have to discuss 
certain theories of vision. The Berkleian theoiy has 
been discredited of late. I am inclined myself to 
believe that the sensations of light arrange themselves 
directly in space, in form — that the animal which has 
vision has not to think out external form by the con- 
trast between this and that direction in space. The 
form is given and the hand strikes it, and so demon- 
strates its resistance, its substantiality. Some know- 
ledge of its own body is necessary to vision, otherwise 
no Older form ; but this vision in outer space does not 
require that the animal should from other organs have 
obtained the knowledge of solid form outside of its 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 23 

body. The visionary form is probably in most animals 
the first introduction to the solid form. 

Do I represent our knowledge of the external world 
as- perfect 1 Is any man of reflection satisfied with it 1 
These forms in space are defined by the forces they 
display. We cannot think of the forms but by these 
forces, nor can we think of the forces without aid of 
the forms. Yet the form cannot be itself the space- 
occupant, that which really possesses or exerts the 
force. Not satisfactory, you say. But the cognition 
of these forces as manifested in space remains to us, 
although this cognition of them may still point to some 
being or existence that escapes in itself from our appre- 
hension. 

When, therefore, the old perplexity is put before us, 
how think of a world independent of ourselves — that 
is, independent of our own senses 1 my answer is, that 
we can think of no other ; that the material forms we 
ultimately cognise are revealed to us by relations which 
our senses have enabled us to perceive, but which are 
from their nature upheld, not by sensations, but by 
space-occupants, whatever they may be. If cognised 
at all, they m^ust be cognised as independent of our 
senses. Merely to say that with my intellectual exist- 
ence the world ceases to exist for me, would be a 
truism which no one would care to dispute, and which 
no one would care to utter. The philosophers I am 
alluding to say that matter, as known to us, is so com- 
pletely the creation of our own senses, that it cannot 
be thought of except in connexion with them. They 
ceasing to exist, the material world as known to us 
must cease to exist — must be thought of as ceasing to 



24: KNOWING AND FEELING : 

exist. This they sometimes call the true doctrine of 
the relativity of knowledge. Solidity is not a property 
of the form in space, it is a muscular feeling of my 
own. I entirely dissent from this interpretation of my 
consciousness, from this description of our knowledge. 
Solidity or resistance is a force, not a sensation. I 
think of it, in my mature state of intelligence, as 
existing in space — as existing before sensation — as a 
necessary condition of sensation, as something that 
from its nature cannot depend on my consciousness of 
it, but on which it is very possible my consciousness 
may depend. 

To return to the Intuitionists. I was about to say 
that I should not follow the example of those who 
commence their treatises with an array of fundamental 
truths which they appear to consider as inseparable 
from a human mind. Certainly not, if these truths 
are of a moral or religious character. If our very 
definition of matter alters or clears itself as knowledge 
advances, is it likely that moral and religious truth 
should reveal itself with precision in the first stages of 
intelligence 1 A truth is none the less a truth because 
for many ages, and to many minds, it was utterly un- 
known, and a sentiment is not to be described as less 
pertaining to humanity, because it comes in as a 
sequence to some previous accretion of knowledge. 

In our ethical controversies there exists and has 
long existed a school of philosophers who insist upon 
describing the conscience, such as they find it in them- 
selves, as having entered full grown into the world. 
God, and obligation to obey Him by loving our fellow- 
creatures — they detect all this in their own conscience, 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 2o 

and forthwith they describe this conscience as an 
original intuition. This may save the trouble of argu- 
ment or investigation, but it leads to a misinterpreta- 
tion of the real nature of a state of mind which has 
been gradually evolved. It is on such a subject as this 
that we must look into the history of the human race 
to assist and correct our psychology. 

We must bear in mind that in no way does " the oak 
lie in the acorn." The only oak is that which begins 
to exist then and there as it appears above the surface 
of the earth, and throws its leaves into the light of 
day. The seed was a condition of the tree, so too was 
earth, and air, and water, and the heat of the sun. 
Through many conditions, after many antecedents, this 
grand novelty of the oak tree made its appearance. In 
like manner, the only mind we know is just this con- 
sciousness that evolves in its order under many condi- 
tions. The knowing and the feeling, the knowledge 
and the sentiments of which this mind is composed, 
have their order of development, order depending on 
the Eternal Cause of all things, if we can speak of its 
depending on anything whatever; but there is no sub- 
stance, mind, or brain, no acorn which in any way held 
this wondrous oak tree within itself. New branches 
spread, new truths, new sentiments — they come ; and 
would you estimate their comparative value and im- 
portance, you must do this by understanding their place 
in the whole. 

Amongst relations which start up as life progresses, 
is this very one of the contrast between truth and 
error. At first all cognitions are equally true ; but 
anticipations come that are not realized, and memories 



26 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

that are not confirmed, and imagination puts together, 
after some wild fashion of her own, the materials of 
experience. So then there are false cognitions, erro- 
neous thoughts, as well as true. And it becomes one 
of the great interests of life to discriminate between 
them. 

IV. 

All our passions are thoughts on one side. The 
simplest desire enfolds some object of perception, or 
some anticipated action. You would not qualify our 
l^assions as pure feeling any more than you would 
describe them as pure thought. Separate the elements, 
and the passion ceases to exist. Fear is an anticipation 
of injury from some external object, or some voluntary 
agent. It is true that the injury we fear may be very 
vague, but these vague fears have entered through 
others not so vague. We run over all the evils we 
have known without resting definitely upon any one, 
or we fear something worse than anything hitherto 
known. When darkness brings its imaginary terrors 
we have the horrible suspicion that some creature or 
person is present, whom we cannot see, and who may 
suddenly make his presence known by seizing on us, 
perhaps to torture us. A quite strange object, seen for 
the first time, may excite fear, but this is because ex- 
perience has taught us that there are hostile ias well as 
friendly creatures, and we know not amongst which to 
class this new-comer. Uncertainty must take the shape 
either of a fear or a hope. 

Merely to think of an object that has given us plea- 
sure, is the source of a new emotion. It may be a. 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 2 i 

desire or a regret ; merely to think of a man who has 
injured us may be the source of a most vivid emotion 
of hatred or revenge. Merely to think of one who has 
given us pleasure is to love him. It is the first step 
into love, happily not the last. Then comes the love 
oi premeditated kindness to another. 

Pain and pleasure might exist without hatred and 
love. Hatred and love could hardly exist without 
pain and pleasure. Such is the order of their becom- 
ing. And by processes of evolution we cannot stop to 
trace, wider and more complex cognitions bring with 
them what we denominate more refined and noble 
sentiments. Always the sentiment is thought on one 
side, feeling on the other. 

Is philanthropy — the question may perhaps have 
been asked — a feeling or a thought '? It is plainly 
both. But then the elements of thought and feeling 
may be very differently proportioned. A man may be 
intellectually occupied with schemes for the ameliora- 
tion of human society, yet not have sufficient emotion 
to lead him into any practical measures for that ameli- 
oration. He will not be without some emotion how- 
ever, for to think of the happiness of others as a 
desirable object, is in some measure to desire it. 
Another man may have reasoned upon his benevolent 
schemes hastily or feebly, and yet be carried by his 
feelings into vigorous and pertinacious action. 

No subject appears to me more interesting than the 
evolution of thought and feeling displayed in what we 
generally call sentiments, aesthetic or moral. But I 
must hasten to the completion of my psychological 
sketch ; and two subjects remain — not to he discussed, 



28 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

for that is impossible, but to be defined and described 
— the will and the personality. 

I have said that mind or consciousness is always a 
knowing and a feeling, always these in their infinite 
diversity, and nothing else than these. What account, 
then, do I give of the will 1 Is not the threefold 
division — knowing, feeling, willing — that which is 
generally adopted by psychologists 1 

Let us limit ourselves at first to will as one with 
voluntary motion. As mere mental resolution, the 
questions that occur are of a different kind. A 
mere mental resolve to perform a certain action at a 
future time can be nothing but thought and desire, 
some combination of our old familiar elements of judg- 
ment and feeling. 

That I have power to move I hold certain, but that 
power or force does not belong to man simply as con- 
scious man. Sensation is not force, cognition is not 
force. There is some space-occupant that moves in 
obedience to sensation, but the force of movement must 
live in it. I learn that there is this force in my vital 
frame ; I depend upon it, I trust it, I have the utmost 
confidence that it will not desert me ; but in my con- 
sciousness it is an object of knowledge. 

That which belongs to the consciousness, which lives 
only in it, is the sentiment of power — the feeling of joy 
in triumph which follows the knowledge of this force 
— the knowledge that / can what / wish, that desire 
accomplishes itself 

There is nothing that I sooner know, nothing that is 
more pertinaciously present to me throughout life, than 
this power of motion. But what does the power 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 29 

mean 1 It means that if I wish to move I move. A 
veritable power ; an accomplishment of my wish. 
How that wish is accomplished I never know — except 
that some force that runs through nature is here linked 
to my desires. I know there is this connexion, and 
have the sentiment of power due to such knowledge. 
This is all I can detect. I notice that between my 
desire and the movement intervene muscular sensations ; 
these become to me the signs of movement and of force, 
but they themselves are neither movement nor force. 
There is no simple psychical element that in the case 
of voluntary motion can be picked out and called tuill. 

To act, to move, is surely something different from 
to know I move. Certainly it is. The movement of 
any body is something different from my knowledge 
that it moves. But that movement can enter into my 
consciousness only as knowledge. I am not bound to 
explain voluntary motion on the theory of those who 
give me no movement at all, no objective reality in 
space — give me nothing but sensations or ideas. I 
have the cognition of my own limbs, and I know that 
they move in obedience to my desires. 

Mr. Bain, at the commencement of his treatise on 
the "Intellect," briefly mentions and dismisses the 
twofold division here adopted ; and insists, somewhat 
energetically, on the threefold division of knowing, 
feeling, and willing. But the reader of Mr. Bain's 
works soon becomes aware that in his analysis the 
radical element, to be called will, is reduced to a 
peculiar sensation which he somewhere suggests may 
be due to the motor nerves, in a more direct manner 
than physiologists generally teacli. That there is this 



30 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

peculiar sensation no one will think of disputing, and 
that it has ni'ost important relations in this matter of 
willing ; but if this peculiar sensation is the radical 
element left in the crucible, what ground can there be 
for making of it a separate class ? 

Many writers are accustomed to speak of a sense of 
effort, as if there were some sensation which at once, 
and by itself, gave us knowledge of force, and of what 
they would call the mind's force. I must repeat here 
the same observations I made on the sense of resistance, 
the same muscular sensation, with a slightly different 
name. We call it sense of resistance when the obstacle 
is prominent in our mind ; sense of effort, when the 
impelled or pressed limb is the prominent perception. 

The muscular sensation we call sense of effort, would 
never have obtained this name, if certain cognitions 
had not accompanied it — cognitions of our moving 
limbs, of limbs pressed against an obstacle, of the 
resistance overcome. We must travel to this last. Mere 
pressure on an obstacle would be an increased sensation 
of touch. The resistance overcome reveals the force, 
and gives to pressure its true character. Effort is a 
correlate of resistance. We have cognitions of form, 
movement, resistance to movement, and resistance over- 
come. By being accompanied with these cognitions 
our muscular sensations obtain such names as sense of 
resistance, sense of effort, or of force. A sensation in 
itself cannot be the force we are seeking. 

It being understood that our knowledge is of realities 
in space, forms, movements, forces, bodies inanimate and 
animate, what is there in will (psychically considered) 
but a knowledge of our bodies as moving under such 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 31 

and such conditions, our confidence in such laws of 
moYement, and the sentiment of power that arises from 
desire accomplished 1 

And now a final word on the perplexing problem of 
personality. 

Amongst the theories propounded on the nature or 
origin of the ego, the one most favoured, I believe, by 
metaphysicians is that which represents the ego and 
non-ego as rising together in every cognition. There 
is no thought, say some, without this object and subject. 
I have been, at times, disposed to adopt this theory, 
but further consideration has compelled me to dissent 
from it. 

Attending as closely as I can to what passes in a 
cognition of the external world, all that I find, in the 
immediate act or state of knowledge, is a perception of 
those relations, as of time' and space, which constitute 
it to be an object of knowledge. This other relation 
between myself and the object, between percipient and 
perceived, is, in fact, another cognition, to which I may 
pass immediately afterwards, but which was no essential 
part of the precedent cognition. It is another know- 
ledge, and has its own history, its own course of evolu- 
tion. Self, or the constant thinker, is there in every 
thought : such is our conviction ; but I can only recog- 
nise it when in its turn it becomes an object of thought. 
What the metaphysicians call subject seems to me only 
the rapid, habitual, irrepressible recurrence of this 
object of thought. I do not think myself in every act 
of thought, though the self may be ever there. 

Many high authorities represent the perception of an 
object in space as necessarily involving the ego and the 



32 KNOWma AND FEELING : 

non-ego, as if such object must necessarily be outside the 
mind. But surely the external object means external 
to my body. It requires two bodies, two positions in 
space, to give externality, to give space itself to the 
consciousness. My body and another body are here 
the terms of the relation. The cognition of externality 
is the perception of the relation between them. The 
cognition itself has no place. Consciousness cannot be 
thought of in a place, except by being connected with 
something that has been so cognised. The external 
object is outside me, because I have located this me in 
my body. 

How grows up this self, this object of thought which 
I learn to regard as the percipient, the thinker, the 
receiver of all impressions, the agent in all acts ? I am 
afraid that my account will be only thought too com- 
monplace, too homely. 

This body of mine not only fills its place, and stands 
opposed in turns to a multitude of other bodies, but it is 
the seat of marvellous organs of sensation, and of this 
marvellous power to move in obedience to sensation. 
It is the eye that sees, the ear that hears, the hand that 
touches, that moves and moves other things. Innu- 
merable are the forms seen, the sounds heard, but the 
same eyes, the same ears, are ever present ; the same 
hands touch everything ; the same vital, mobile frame 
is ready at all times to respond to our desires. This 
body, so endowed, I must need carry with me through 
all my memories and all my anticipations : it is my 
earliest ego, and the ground or condition for any more 
subtle ego that is afterwards devised. 

For although to our first apprehensions it is the eye 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 33 

that sees and the ear that hears, and the hand that moves, 
we come to recognise our consciousness, as embracing 
in its own unity whatever the eye and the ear and the 
hand can contribute. What is this which combines all 
that the senses give, and contributes thoughts of its own 1 
I see, and I remember while I see. What is it that 
both thinks and feels 1 Whatever it may be, I place 
it there amongst the senses. It has no form or substance 
that I can seize upon ; but I can give it a place ; I can 
lodge it in the body. Somewhere behind the eye and 
the ear is that which remembers what was seen and 
heard. Men soon become familiar with forms of matter 
impalpable or iuAdsible ; they feel the wind they do 
not see ; they see reflections in the water they do not 
touch. Something both invisible and impalpable within 
the body — this shall be that which thinks. 

The more mature and cultivated man meditating on 
the unity of consciousness (for the consciousness is 
always that one which embraces the many) carries his 
speculations still further. His thinking substance shall 
be one and indivisible. Here perhaps he rests. It is 
no disparagement to his conception of a soul or spirit 
within the body, that it could not have been reached 
but through a previous knowledge of the body itself. 
Have I not said that it is the last, and not the first, 
that is most honourable and of necessity the most 
authoritative "? 

Whatever is the final conception we attain (some 
mingled conception to the last, I presume, of body and 
soul), whatever is the object of thought we call self, 
that object accompanies every memory and every antici- 
pation. It is that which has felt and acted, which will 

G 



34 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

feel, enjoy, suffer, and act in the future ; it is this we 
surround, as a nucleus, with habits and acquirements, 
and ever recurring wants or passions. No reflection is 
without it. The thought just passed is instantly re- 
cognised as having been the thought of this self. But 
it is always as an object that it occurs ; the relation of 
object and subject is, in reality, the relation between 
two objects of thought. 

I do not say that thought exists without a thinker ; 
I merely say that the thinker does not think himself 
in every thought. Under very strong passion, or in 
earnest meditation upon some impersonal topic, we are 
aware that there has passed an interval without any 
reference to self. 

But, in general, the present consciousness is made up 
of memories and anticipations, and in all these self 
enters. To remember a sensation as mine is to attri- 
bute it to this body of mine. It is because the present 
consciousness is almost always some combination of our 
past or of our expected future, that this self is so rarely 
absent from us. 

For this reason I said in the commencement that 
personality ultimately depends on the fact, that the 
present consciousness embraces in itself the past, the 
future. The two selfs of past and future must need be 
identical, for our anticipations are our memories thrown 
before us. 

The actual present consciousness, if it could possibly 
be limited to some one object, as the perception of 
relations in space, would have no self in it. It would 
consist of just that perception of relation. 

To no such consciousness can we travel back. In 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 35 

the first place, all sensations, actions, cognitions, have 
been associated with this body, or this soul-in-body ; 
and, in the next place, our present consciousness almost 
invariably consists of the past and future of this self. 
And the very present will, the instant it has passed, 
be known as having belonged to the same self. 

Consciousness travels on, one ever-present, with its 
past and future self. And as it travels on it moulds 
and magnifies this self — whose real home is always in 
the past or future. 

Our poet Tennyson has not scrupled to represent the 
personality as a knowledge that has had its course of 
growth or development ; and, to judge by the frequency 
with which his lines have been quoted, they must have 
harmonized with some general conviction — 

" The baby new to eartb and sky, 

What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 
Has never thought ' that this is I.' 

But as he grows he gathers much, 
And learns the use of ' I ' and ' me,' 
And finds I am not what I see. 

And other than the things I touch : 

So rounds he to a separate mind." 

The nature of our knowledge of the external world, 
the will, and personality, are three topics intimately 
connected. I regard our knowledge of the external 
world as based on the perception of relations which 
from their nature can be supported only by space- 
occupants. I believe in the external world ; therefore 
I can believe that the actual relations of this world 



36 KNOWING AND FEELING. 

become (I know not how) in the sensitive organism, 
^perceptions of these relations. And if I believe that an 
animated body, by such perceptions, has become cogni- 
sant of itself and of its surroundings, must not I see 
here the first i^ersonality ? This animated creature, 
standing out in contrast to all the rest of the world, 
moving in obedience to all desires, has will because 
there is this combination of desires and movements ; 
and has the sentiment of power because it knows this 
connexion of desire and movement. 

Man is not simply a conscious being, he is a combi- 
nation of physical and psychical properties, or, as we 
familiarly say, he is body and soul. To know is pre- 
eminently the psychical property, and to know the 
body, its movements and laws of movements, and how 
they are connected with feeling or desires, becomes a 
consciousness of power. If we seek anywhere for an 
Individuality that can march forth alone in the uni- 
verse, we shall seek in vain. We move, and live, and 
have our conscious being as parts of some great whole 
— of Divine authorship as we think. There are, so far 
as we can penetrate, innumerable space-occupants which 
define themselves to us by their relation to each other ; 
they form bodies, vital bodies, these last become con- 
scious of themselves and their surroundings. As 
psychologists, we must begin by shutting ourselves up 
in our consciousness ; but having justified to ourselves 
our knowledge of the world in space, we end by, in 
part, explaining our consciousness by that world in 
space. Mind is a creation upon a creation ; the mind 
of man, the last creation, still travelling on, as we be- 
lieve, to its completeness or to further development. 



PART II. 

SOME FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THE WILL. 

Consciousness, I endeavoured to show, is, from its 
first to its last stage of development, a combination of 
knowing and feeling. The two elements, sensation and 
judgment (apprehension of relations), are inextricably 
blended in our simplest perceptions ; sensations arising 
to us in the relations of space and time. The unit of 
consciousness, if this expression is permissible, is a 
combination of sensations and a judgment, or appre- 
hension of relations. I say if this expression is per- 
missible, because I have always felt the difficulty there 
is in speaking of one definite state of consciousness, 
seeing that the consciousness itself is an arena of per- 
petual change and flux, and that what we should call 
the movement of thought appears necessary to thought 
itself When, in the further evolution of mind, cogni- 
tion seems to separate itself most distinctly from feeling, 
as in the labours of the mathematician or man of 
science, the cognitions with which their thinking is 
concerned were originally due in part to sensations ; 
and a desire of some kind, curiosity if no other, pre- 
sides over all that movement of thought which we here 
call reasoning or acquisition of knowledge. A percep- 



38 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

tion, in becoming a memory, if it is stripped of its sen- 
sational character, assumes an emotional character. To 
think of a past pleasure or pain becomes a present 
passion. In short, look into the consciousness at any 
moment you will, you find an inextricable complication 
of the intellectual and the emotional, of passions that 
grow out of cognitions, of cognitions again that have 
passions and other feelings for the objects of dis- 
crimination and comparison. All our moral truths 
have pain and pleasure, love and hate, for the very 
terms of the cognitions they deal with. 

But consciousness is not the whole man. He con- 
sists of body, as well as mind, or in a union of physical 
and psychical properties. The connexion between 
these properties, in one remarkable instance, gives us 
voluntary motion, gives us will. Will, as voluntary 
motion, is plainly neither exclusively a physical nor 
psychical property, but a result of their combination. 
Movement and the force by which one body moves or 
breaks up another body, are physical properties, thought 
and feeling are psychical properties ; the connexion 
between the two constitutes the will, as matter of fact ; 
the knowledge of such connexion gives us our sentiment 
of power, our self-confidence, our belief that to a cer- 
tain extent we have a command over the future. It 
converts thought into a purpose, anticipation into a 
resolve. 

Two great facts encounter us on the threshold of 
life, — the action of the external world on our sensitive 
bodies, and the reaction of those sensitive bodies on 
surrounding objects. These two great facts, or speak- 
ing from a psychological point of view, these two cog- 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 39 

nitions, enter together into the consciousness. I know 
my own body and its movements, at the same time that 
I know the external object and its movement, or its 
resistance to movement. The two cognitions are 
needful to each other. I know furthermore that the 
movements of my limbs follow, to a certain extent, my 
desires. I know this as a matter of experience, and 
have learned to trust to it as the invariable order. I 
know nothing more ; or if physiology and metaphysical 
reasoning have given me any insight into the nature of 
this connexion between desire and movement, it is 
plain that I am here dealing with some additional 
cognitions. In psychology, the will is nothing else 
than a special cognition accompanied by its special 
class of sensations and emotions. 

As to the theories we form of the nature of mind 
and matter, or of the connexion between them, I 
repeat that we are plainly here on the high road of 
reasoning or conjecture. To some, the transition from 
a state of consciousness to bodily movement seems best 
represented by supposing that the same substance puts 
forth in succession these two different modes of activity. 
Others prefer to assign these two modes of activity to 
different substances, and they represent the one of 
these substances stimulating and determining the 
movements of the other. We hear some maintain 
that all force is essentially will, that is, it emanates 
from mind, from the mind of Deity, matter being only 
the passive recipient of such forces. This last theory 
claims our respect ; all these theories claim our exa- 
mination ; but they are evidently at present in the 
state of conjecture. What we really know, what every 



40 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

man, woman, and child born into the world really 
knows, is that desire is followed by movement. 

Here some reader may object — But we do not say 
my desire moves my arm, or desire moves the arm ; we 
say I desire, and I move. Does not the / move remit 
the power at once to the ego, whatever the ego may 
be ] To me it seems that the / move is equivalent to 
this man moves ; and this man is just the union of the 
several properties, physical and psychical, that go to 
the formation of this whole. Both the desire and the 
movement belong to the man, but the man is nothing 
but the combination of desire and movement and other 
properties. His heart, his limbs, his lungs lelong to 
the man ; that is, they are parts of the whole we call 
a man. In no other sense do they belong to him. 
This mode of speaking and thinking follows us every- 
where, for everywhere we encounter individualities 
which are but combinations of parts forming a new 
or specific whole. We say of a dog that it has a head, 
has four legs. Abstract the head, or the legs, where is 
the dog 1 The dog is a certain whole of many parts 
and properties, and each one is in its turn referred to 
that whole. In the / think, I desire, I move of human 
speech there is a reference of each of these properties 
to that whole which constitutes the conception of man, 
or to so much of that whole as is necessary to give a 
meaning to the expression /, or this man. And when 
we say / will, this is a reference to the same whole of 
that connexion between the properties of desire or 
movement which enters so conspicuously into the 
composition or individuality of man. 

I observed in my last paper that the term Will was 



A CONTRIBUTTOX TO PSYCHOLOGY. 41 

often applied exclusively to the purpose itself, to the 
thought or consciousness that precedes motion, and I 
added that this application to the mental resolve had 
given rise to a class of questions I could not then stay 
to examine. I alluded especially to the question we 
ask about the will, whether it is free or not 1 If I 
may venture to trespass so far on the patience of the 
readers of the Contemporary, I would continue some- 
what further my discussion of the will, and carry the 
discussion into this old debate. 



It is not difficult of explanation how the term Will 
comes to be used as synonymous with Purpose ; how 
it happens that we speak indifferently of a man of 
indomitable resolve, or indomitable will. The purpose 
of the man is the important element in every human 
action. It ^s to this our blame or praise attaches. 
The actual movement of body or limb that follows the 
resolution may often be of the most trivial description, 
or, through the wonderful education which resides in 
habit, it may be performed, as we are accustomed to 
say, almost automatically. If the child at first moves 
for the very pleasure of movement, from the desire to 
reproduce the sensations of touch and muscular con- 
traction (the memory and anticipation of such muscular 
sensations acting, it is supposed, as a repetition of the 
original stimulus that passed from the nerves of sense 
to the nerves of motion), it very soon has ulterior 
objects for its various movements. It clutches at some 
object of desire, and so well has habit done its office, 
that the eye seems to direct the hand without a thought 



42 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

being bestowed on the muscle, or on the individual 
movements of the arm and the fingers. And again, 
the motives that induce either the child or the man to 
clutch at an object may be very different. The outward 
action may be the same where the purposes are in 
flagrant contrast. A child grasps the neck of the 
decanter to help itself to some tempting liquid, the 
nurse grasps the same decanter to prevent the child 
from drinking what would be deleterious to it. The 
meaning and nature of the action comes to depend on 
the thought behind it. A bridge has been carefully, 
laboriously, slowly built by the subtle power of habit, 
between the consciousness of the man and the physical 
world, and now what processions are marshalled on the 
other side of the bridge ! The bridge itself is scarcely 
considered. 

A school-boy moves a pen over a copy-book and 
produces his array of letters, good or bad. With very 
much the same action of his hand, an emperor may • 
abdicate his throne. Vastly different actions, and the \ 
same trivial, customary movement. Very often the 
movement that follows along deliberation or important 
resolve, has no peculiar relation to the thought or pur- 
pose. To a mere spectator, it would be quite insig- 
nificant. To descend from our imperial altitude — and 
to descend gently — let us suppose a member of parlia- 
ment receiving an offer to join the ministry, to take 
office as we say, how gravely he might deliberate, with 
what emotion he might resolve ! Yet the resolution 
made, what does he do ? Perhaps he rises gently from 
his seat, touches a bell, and despatches a message, 
which has no apparent connexion with the acceptance 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 43 

or refusal of office. The resolution is all, the ability to 
act on it is implied, and, therefore, it takes to itself the 
name of will, which primarily embraced not only the 
purpose but the external act itself. 

More especially to him who has the purpose is the 
ability to act in uniformity with it implied. Purpose 
includes some anticipated action. It includes the con- 
fidence that this bridge lies open between thought and 
movement. No wonder the man says / loill who as 
yet only anticipates action. 

But there is another important fact to be taken 
notice of. A purpose not only goes forth into action ; 
it influences our trains of thought. We think under 
the influence of a purpose. Purposes once formed, all 
our thinking, unless it be some idle reverie, is controlled 
and prompted by them. We are not able here to 
anticipate tfie very thought, as we can anticipate the 
very movement which is next to he, but the purpose 
rouses the mental activity, and keeps it circulating 
round a given centre. The mechanical inventor, 
though he may be walking abroad in the fields, where 
not a wheel or a cog can anywhere be seen, is kept 
revolving in his mind all manner of combinations of 
wheelwork by his predominant purpose. Whatever 
may be our end in view, we are casting about for 
means for its accomplishment. For this reason it is 
said that attention is voluntary. We are looking or 
thinking energetically for some purpose, if it be only to 
know what manner of thing lies before us, and in what 
respects it difi'ers from other things of similar kind. 

Nor is this thinking for a purpose without its senti- 
ment of power, for although the thinker cannot antici- 



44 KNOWING- AND FEELING : 

pate the very thought, as he can anticipate the very 
movement, that is next to take its place in the series 
of events, he has learnt that there is an influence of 
desire upon thought, he knows that his wishing, here 
also, will be effective, and will, in some less direct way, 
lead to the end he has in view. He tells you that he has 
the power to concentrate his energies upon his subject, 
and is not without some degree of confidence in the 
result. The thinker has his sense of power as well as 
the acrobat, though he cannot tell you so precisely what 
will be done. 

Whether we give the name of will to this control 
which desire or purpose has over the current of thought, 
or prefer to describe this control as one amongst the 
laws of thought, laws that regulate the sequence and 
permanence of our ideas, — in either case the fact 
remains that we do marshal our thoughts under the 
sway of any predominant purpose. This is one sense 
of self-determination, as when we say that a man has 
the power of determining his own character. 

II. 

When science began to teach that all the forces or 
activities that surround us in space are determined, as 
to their moment of display, by relations to other forces 
or activities ; that nothing moves alone ; nothing origi- 
nates its own movement or arrests its own movement ; 
that everything acts in a pre-ordained order ; nay, that 
whatever we call thing or individual, is some gathering 
together of pre-existent forms and activities, and acts 
in its individuality only in ordered relation to other 
individuals — men were prompted to ask, what then of 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 45 

human thoughts and feel'ngs which constitute the con- 
sciousness of man 1 Does the same order prevail here 1 
Do these also come into existence, appear and disappear, 
according to some established law 1 And is this indi- 
viduality which I call myself made up of divers ele- 
ments, and does it act and live, as such individuality, 
by strictly ordained relations with the surrounding 
world of material forms and forces 1 Look abroad : 
the river, which lies and flows upon the earth, would 
not be a river without its channel ; the earth is upheld 
by the sun ; the smallest atom consists of parts and of 
divers forces, and has its movements determined by 
other atoms. As for living things, the plant is not only 
rooted in the soil, but grows out of air, and water, and 
heat, and light, and depends on a perpetual interchange 
of its very substance with the surrounding world. For 
the animal does it not feed upon the vegetable, or on 
some other animal 1 How self-contained it seems as 
it darts hither and thither, runs or flies, seizing upon 
its prey ! Yet the creature does not live an instant 
but by the order or harmony of that greater whole of 
which it is a part. Is man an individuality of this 
description ? Distinguished as he is from all other 
creatures, and the last appearance in this region of 
space, is he not also a part of this wondrous whole 1 
And though we assign to him — to each individual man 
— the indivisible soul we are all in imagination so 
familiar with, is not this new entity itself reacted on 
by the material instruments it is compelled to employ 1 
These nerves, this brain, are its slaves, and its tyrants 
also. They receive impressions or modifications from 
the very work they are engaged in, they grow this way 



46 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

or that by their very activity (growth which we call 
habit), and will at length perform work only of one 
kind. So the past comes to determine the present. 
In this, or some other way, man finds out that there is 
within his own little kingdom of mind, or self, an 
evolution, in which what has been determines what will 
he ; determines it to us, to our apprehension, who see 
only the growth, and cannot dive down to the grower, 
whether of the plant or the mind. 

If this be so, the startling reflection occurs. What be- 
comes of our moral responsibility 1 Do we not punish 
this or that scoundrel in the firm faith that it depended 
on himself, at every moment of his life, whether he 
would be a scoundrel or not 1 How can I continue to 
punish him, or to punish him with the same sense of 
justice, if I am to believe that he grew into a scoundrel 
by the laws of nature — laws somewhat more complicate, 
but of the same kind that grow a tiger or a domestic 
dog? And, moreover, if I myself am the person 
punished, in what spirit am I to receive my punish- 
ment 1 Good for the whole, you say. A necessity is 
imposed on society to punish, and it is a necessity for 
me to submit. Perhaps I may profit by it. But w^hat 
of this sentiment of remorse— of self -reproof ? If crime 
was a misfortune or a misery in some other man, it was 
but a misfortune and a misery in me. 

What contribution have I to make towards a solu- 
tion of this old difiiculty 1 

I would observe that this teaching of science, at some 
time or other, came in as a new doctrine, that our 
passions and sentiments had been adjusted without it, 
that it is not likely that it should be received and not 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 47 

work some change in preconceived ideas of justice or 
moral responsibility j but that it is very possible, when 
the whole truth stands out clear before us, that the 
modifications made on our sense of justice may be far 
from pernicious. 

The universality of law appeared as a new doctrine. 
Those who claimed for the human mind an exemption 
from the sway of law, were also, to a certain extent, 
teaching a new doctrine. It was not, therefore, on this 
position, " that man's mind or man's will is free, while 
the rest of nature is under the bondage of law," that 
moral responsibility was founded. Such an intellectual 
position could only be taken up after the teaching of 
science. But what occurred was this : men looked at 
the individual before them, saw him capable of self- 
movement, of self-determination, and felt towards him 
as if he were the veritable ultimate source of whatever 
injury or benefit came from the man. They carried 
their thoughts no further. Reign of law, or exemption 
from this reign, had not been heard of. Neither, when 
they contemplated themselves, did they ask whence 
their desires or purposes ; but, conscious of acting from 
these, rested in the thought that they were the origin 
of their own deeds ; as in some sense they certainly 
are. With the teaching of science the individual, while 
retaining his individuality, is shown to be more and 
more distinctly a part of a greater whole. The indi- 
vidual man is not only part of that entirety we call the 
world ; he is also part of another we call society. The 
recognition of these truths does and must modify the 
sentiment of justice that had grown up before their 
advent ; and I add that such modification, so far from 



48 KNOWING A.ND FEELING : 

being a cause of alarm or regret, is one that takes its 
place in the order of human progress. 

III. 

The sentiment of moral responsibility is safe enough 
whatever betides. Let us look at the facts out of which 
it springs. 

Man is, all his life, from infancy upwards, surrounded 
by other human beings whose wants and desires con- 
flict or harmonize with his own. He is never free from 
this environment. He is prompted or controlled at 
every turn. Just as we move, and attain our power 
of resistance from the pressure and impact of foreign 
bodies, so do we love and hate and attain our sense 
of freedom or self-assertion from the sympathy, con- 
trol, and resistance of other human beings. The pres- 
sure and stimulant of this social medium is as necessary 
to the growth of passion and intelligence as the pres- 
sure and stimulant of the external world was to animal 
life itself. It is no exaggeration to compare the two. 

The child is, from the hour of its birth, under the 
control and superintendence of others. Without such 
superintendence it could not live. But it no sooner 
begins to move by impulses and desires of its own than 
it manifests an opposition to the control. The little 
rebel, who has found that it can move as it desires, 
refuses to move in any other way ; and here, let me 
observe, is the very origin of our sentiment of freedom. 
I move as I desire, is power; I move as I desire in 
opposition to the command or control of another, is 
freedom as well as power. That sentiment of freedom 
we have to act upon in relation to our fellow-creatures 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 49 

has a social origin. It did not spring from any theory 
about the freedom of the will. It sprang from resist- 
ance to control. 

Submission was good, but rebellion was better. 
The child learnt self-assertion. Then afterwards, as 
intelligence and affection are developed, it learns to 
forego its self-assertion. A mere helpless submission 
becomes a voluntary obedience. It chooses obedience. 
The moral sentiment is created. 

Strange ! Even most intelligent men, like M. Jouf- 
froy and others, in arguing the question of the free 
will, plant themselves on this fact of Choice, and hence 
contend for their favourite doctrine. Indisputably we 
choose. But what is choice ? It is manifestly a very 
conspicuous instance of that combination of passion 
and reasoii; of the intellectual and emotional elements, 
which we say characterizes the consciousness through- 
out. In what the moralist calls choice the two elements 
of judgment and passion are inseparably combined. 
There is comparison, contrast, consequences inferred, 
and there is that prevailing feeling, whatever it may 
be, which is the essence of a ^preference. There is no 
vnll to preside over this choice, but this choice becomes 
itself will by its going forth into action. It is the pas- 
sion and judgment of the man that together make his 
choice. His energy" lies in his passion. 

My position as a psychologist is clear. If we are 
speaking of action, will is the relation between thought 
and feeling, between a state of consciousness and some 
movement. To describe this relation as being free is 
unintelligible language. By a license of speech we 
give the name wall to the purpose alone. The purpose 

D 



50 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

alone, before it is connected with action, is a certain 
combination of thought and feeling. Then, to say 
that such purpose is free, is simply to assert that 
thought and feeling, that the whole mind of man is 
free, that is, not included in the general laws of the 
universe. Such assertion may be made; but it is a 
far wider, and very different assertion, than that which 
the advocate of free will is understood to make. 

I was observing that, whether we make such asser- 
tion or not, moral responsibility must equally remain. 
Man is not a solitary being ; he grows up, pressed on 
all sides by fellow-creatures. He loves and hates, and 
has to rejoice or suffer under the love and hatred of 
others. This coercion of the society on the individual 
is inevitable. It is exercised in different manners at 
different times. The common purposes of mankind 
vary. Many circumstances arise, modifying this coer- 
cion of society; as, for instance, the division of the 
community into several classes, whose interests, or 
common purposes, are not identical. Nor are great 
philosophical truths or doctrines without their influence. 
They may modify the love or hate we entertain to each 
other. They may enlighten us on what should be the 
common purposes of society. Where there is a common 
purpose, energetic and almost unanimous, this coercion 
is at its height. But need I say that no society could 
exist, not the poorest, scantiest hive of human beings, 
without this control of all on each, and the sentiment 
of moral responsibility which is the result of it 1 

IV. 

Presuming we have arrived at the conclusion that 
mind and matter, psychical as well as physical qualities. 



A COXTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 51 

are all parts of one stupendous scheme, parts of that 
harmonious whole we ascribe to the Infinite Power, 
which again manifests itself to us in that whole — pre- 
suming that some such philosophical doctrine were 
generally accepted, what would be its influence on our 
moral sentiments ? 

I can well understand that a man with very vague 
notions about desert and punishment might, on first 
becoming acquainted with such a philosophy, be disposed 
to extract from it an excuse for self-indulgence. He 
has ofi'ended some one, who threatens punishment, and 
he pleads the necessity of the case, that " he could not 
help it" — that, in short, his passions were too strong to 
be controlled. Some such colloquy as the following 
might take place : — 

"But you could help it," the offended man might 
retort. " You had the two courses of conduct placed 
before you, and you chose this." 

" Yery true ; I chose. But then, as you know, I 
had certain habits and tastes, and but a certain amount 
of knowledge. I could not choose otherwise." 

''' It was your duty not to let such habits and tastes, 
as you call them, become predominant. It is the first 
purpose of every intelligent man to form his own 
character ; you had the power to watch over yourself, 
and to check your- self-indulgences." 

" True again ; but you know as well as I do that I 
could not exercise a supervision over my own habits 
and tastes, with a view to the formation of my own 
character, unless I had this very purpose of forming a 
character. My power here is simply an acting or 
thinking under the influence of such a purpose. Now 



52 KNOWING AND FEELING- : 

no such purpose has ever grown up in me, or it has 
been a plant of an extremely feeble description. I 
have been chiefly occupied with such chance pleasures 
— they have been few enough — that came within my 
reach. You, I believe, have had this solemn purpose 
of forming a character ; I congratulate you upon it ; in 
me it has not been evolved." 

Here the off'ended man will probably break ofi" the 
colloquy : — " All I can say is this," he will ultimately 
reply, " that if you do it again I will so punish you 
that you will choose better for the future." 

And if this is an earnest threat it will very likely be 
efl'ectual, and lead to some better choice on the next 
occasion. It may also lead our tiro in philosophy to 
some reflection on the nature of punishment. Based on 
the past deed, its operation is really prospective. It 
stands between the past and the future. It is, in short, 
an instrument of education ; a coarse instrument, but 
indispensable. 

Moreover, even the off'ended man, when his anger has 
subsided, may gather something from such a colloquy. 
He, too, will be led to reflect on the nature of vice and 
its punishment. He knows that in some extreme cases 
society can think only of self-defence. It either exter- 
minates the criminal or incarcerates him, just as we are 
compelled to shoot a tiger or shut it in a cage. But 
these cases excepted, he too will note that punishment 
is in its nature a mode of education, and a mode not to 
be resorted to while there are other blander or more 
efl'ectual modes within reach. 

What gain could it be to any individual to relieve 
him from punishment on the plea that passion and habit 
were too strong for him, and that he " could not help 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 53 

it'"? The more need that society should come to his 
aid and help him " to help it." What are any of us 
without the control of society 1 

Look into the village school. Here is an idle boy 
who lounges, and sulks, and slumbers over his book. 
In fact he is fat, and lethargic in his temperament. A 
physiologist will suggest good reasons for his indolence. 
He cannot help it. Left to himself he cannot. But the 
schoolmaster comes to his assistance, applies reproof, 
shames him in the eyes of his fellow-pupils ; if need be 
applies the cane. The boy struggles through his task. 
Thus stimulated he becomes intelligent of something 
beyond marbles and peg-top. Would it have been 
kindness, would it have been well, for him or the com- 
munity, if th^ plea " he could not help it " had been 
listened to, and the lethargic temperament left in un- 
disputed predominance 1 It was predominant, and for 
that reason, doubtless much to his regret, the school- 
master was compelled to administer the sharp stimulant 
of the cane. 

The notions afloat in the public mind about punish- 
ment or criminal justice may receive some modification 
from our philosophy, and with considerable advantage. 
As it is the purpose or intention which is the great 
element in human action, it is the purpose or intention 
we mainly look for "when we ask the question, whether 
a man deserves punishment or not. And since we have 
not been accustomed to proceed further in our inquiries, 
but have rested at this purpose, we have naturally 
rested in this idea of desert. We leave ofiP with this 
feeling, that the man deserves the punishment, as he 
really designed the act and the evil consequences that 



54 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

followed from it. Apart from the consideration of the 
deterring or educational effect of the punishment, the 
mind receives a satisfaction from this feeling, that it 
was deserved. It would not shock us to carry out the 
punishment irrespective of any good results to ensue 
from the punishment itself. But if we push our 
inquiries into the origin of this purpose that we punish, 
we may often find more room for compassion than for 
anger. We find neglected education, unpropitious cir- 
cumstances, an inordinate appetite for pleasure, or a 
pitiful instability, at the root of all. We become more 
and more awake to the importance of early education, 
and speculate on the kind of education that might 
compete with these deleterious influences. But on this 
account do we forego the present punishment ? No ; 
but we administer it for such good results as we hope 
may flow from it. We make the discovery that a 
perfect punishment regards the past purpose — punishes 
it — but punishes in order to aid the formation of better 
purposes for the future. A merely retributive punish- 
ment is discarded ; it must be also prospective in its 
character. A perfect punishment, that which is really 
deserved, is that which is inflicted on what is truly a 
human action, a purposed deed, and inflicted with the 
design of preventing such purpose for the future. A 
just punishment stands between the past and the future 
— the past is judged ; the character of the act is dis- 
criminated, and it is further punished for the improve- 
ment of the criminal himself, if possible ; but, at all 
events, for the prevention of the recurrence of such acts. 
Public punishments, such as are administered by the 
laws, are administered by the whole society, by the 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 55 

whole community, for its own interest and self-preser- 
vation. I have heard it asked, Why should a man be 
punished as an example for others — why should he be 
sacrificed to the good of society 1 And thereupon I 
have heard the querist endeavour to satisfy himself by 
some eternal fitness between punishment and crime. 
The culprit deserved, and therefore he was punished. 
The culprit deserves no punishment at all, unless you 
can prove, first, that he committed the crime ; and, in 
the second place, that the punishment of it is for the 
good of society. It is precisely this very element of 
the good of all that makes the punishment a righteous 
punishment, that makes it deserved, that makes it justice, 
and not mere revenge. The man punished is one of the 
all. Would he renounce this solidarity ? 

But under our" philosophy it is said the criminal will 
not judge himself so severely as he was wont to do. 
Men will be apt to be self-indulgent. Eemorse will 
die out. Here, I have to observe that the standard of 
moral perfection that men propose to themselves must 
depend on the existing development of intelligence and 
affection. It can depend on nothing else. Philosophy 
or science does nothing to check this development. 
As to this peculiar sentiment of remorse, some modifi- 
cation here may well be admitted. As in punishing a 
criminal we put ourselves between the past and the 
future, punish the deed done to secure a better doing for 
the future, so we must desire the criminal also to put 
himself between the past and the future, to reproach 
himself for the deed done, and at the same moment 
resolve on better life for the future. We have no 
desire that he should inflict misery on himself, that 



56 KNOWING AND FEELING: 

leads to no good result. If it were possible for him to 
rest wholly in his remorse for the past, the sentiment 
would be of no avail. Penitence that leads to better 
life is the noblest of sentiments ; but it is noble in 
proportion as the sad penitent directs his steps to 
wiser courses. A remorse that shuts a man up for 
self-torture does not commend itself to us. " You have 
done wrong ; you know it and you feel it ; go now 
and do right ; show your sorrow in your better life." 
That is the language we expect to hear from the lips 
of intelligent men. Eemorse that contemplates any 
other expiation than the better life for the future leads 
to superstitious practices. Again and again has society 
witnessed this spectacle : men and women have had 
remorse, have expiated their vices by some self-torture, 
some • retributive punishment self-inflicted, and gone 
back into society ready to reproduce the same vices. 
There is no expiation for an old crime but a new 
virtue. 

The sentiment of moral responsibility, or the moral 
sentiment, passes through many phases. At first it is 
plainly the fear of punishment attached to some volun- 
tary or purposed action. Then the kind of punish- 
ment that is feared begins to change ; we fear disgrace 
more than bodily pain. Afterwards the boy or youth 
undertakes to be himself a judge of others ; sees him- 
self less frequently in the place of culprit ; delights to 
put himself in the judgment-seat. He thinks with the 
multitude, or with some class or body to which he 
belongs j he pronounces judgment in their name. Of 
course he has to commend the same chalice to his own 
lips that, in the name of such society, he has offered to 



A CONTKIiJUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 57 

others. With maturer intellect he comes to understand 
how individuals grow each in his own environment ; 
he becomes more tolerant of the criminal, less tolerant 
of the crime ; he wants to attack this last in every- 
way imaginable — stifle it, if possible, in its birth. 
Morality takes the shape of a great desire — desire of 
excellence in others and in himself — desire of a com- 
pleted society to be obtained only by the co-operation 
of each member of it. For such is the nature of the 
human hive. It forms the individual, yet itself is only 
an assemblage of individuals, each leading his own 
intelligent and passionate existence. Add, too, that 
such desire is sustained by the knowledge that it is 
shared with other minds around him, who will esteem 
and love him in proportion as he possesses and acts 
upon it ; sustained^ also by the knowledge that it is 
one with the laws of God. 

Surely to believe that God has created a world which 
■progresses in part through the progressive purposes of 
man, will not check the growth of such purposes. 

V. 

To resume. Will, in its primitive significance, is the 
relation between the psychical and physical properties 
of man. Movement and sensation are found blended 
together. We presume even in the brain, but we enter 
into a knowledge of this union only through the move- 
ment of the limbs ; nor can we proceed further back, 
in our introspection, than the consciousness of our 
limbs moving at the call of sensation or desire. En- 
deavouring to trace the earlier stages of the growth of 
a definite case of will, we assume that at first the 



58 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

infant would move from some sense of uneasiness, by a 
purely physiological connexion between that sense of 
uneasiness and a given movement ; or that there is a 
direct connexion between our organs of perception and 
specific movements. Some experiences, founded on 
these physiological facts, must have preceded a definite 
desire to move, because such a desire implies the know- 
ledge that movement follows our feelings and percep- 
tions. It is an emotional anticipation of the movement 
that directly leads to it. Such emotional anticipation 
is itself only a combination of thought and feeling ; the 
movement of the limb ensues ; the combination of these 
two is a case of will. 

If by any means a conviction is introduced into the 
mind that you cannot move, you will be unable to move 
voluntarily ; because the anticipation of movement is 
an essential part of the process, and you are prevented 
from forming the anticipation. Thus a weak or idiotic 
person might be persuaded by another that he could 
not move his arm, and while under that persuasion a 
voluntary movement of the arm would be impossible. 
People under the mesmeric influence are said to be 
reduced to the requisite state of idiocy, and to be 
capable of receiving such a conviction. I do not speak 
to this fact myself ; I merely observe that, if it be a 
fact, the explanation of it is at hand. In the mesmeric 
exhibitions that I have witnessed, the lads who were 
told that they could not rise from their seats, and were 
thereupon seen to writhe with unavailing effort, seemed 
to me to play their parts only too well. Mere immo- 
bility, which I presume would have been the efi'ect of 
such genuine convictions, would have told nothing to 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 59 

the spectators. So the lads grimaced and writhed. 
But if so much of the old accustomed conviction was 
left as to enable them to perform such contortions, one 
suspects they might have carried their movements a 
little further. 

Let us take some complete and finished instance of 
voluntary motion — say a trained youth in his athletic 
exercises. He is ]puUing the stone. He chooses his 
position, plants his feet firm upon the earth, and at 
such distance from each other as to give him the surest 
support ; his back is arched,' his chest expanded to 
afford fullest play to the muscles ; he raises the stone 
in both hands. All these preliminary movements 
follow each other, or group themselves together, with 
scarce a thought bestowed upon them. There was a 
time when they wer^ separate acquisitions, practised 
with conscious care, and with that degree of loain 
which attends upon new movements, and which enters 
largely into what is called sense of efi'ort when new 
movements are being learnt. Now they fall as readily 
into their place as words in our ordinary language. 
They are, indeed, a kind of expression of himself, of 
his thought or purpose. He next fixes his eye on some 
imaginary spot to which he means to hurl his massive 
stone, and with one last passionate resolve that con- 
tracts every muscle in his frame, he dismisses it from 
his hands. What next ensues ? He sees it flying 
through the air ; he sees it half-bury itself in the earth, 
or scatter the soil where it falls. Such perception of 
form, and motion, and resistance overcome, such know- 
ledge of the force which it has displayed, enter rapidly 
into his mind. That force of the stone is carried back 



60 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

to the arm that propelled it, to the passion that nerved 
the arm ! 

But manifestly the passion, and the arm so nerved 
or stimulated, cannot be separated in the last concep- 
tion he forms of what moved the stone. If in popular 
language he says it was his will that did it, he never, 
in the term will, separates the psychical property, the 
purpose, the passion, from the bodily force. He unites 
the two in this one convenient word, will. 

We fall into a mistake if (speaking of voluntary 
motion) we take this convenient word will, and express 
by it some simple and peculiar psychical quality. It 
was framed to express a union of soul and body — the 
passion-contracted arm — but the psychical part of the 
business usurps the name to itself. 

This it does very conspicuously when the movement, 
or series of movements that we perform, is not the 
main object of our contemplation, or when the action, 
whatever it may be, is still at a distance. Here popular 
language applies the term will to the resolution itself. 
And here it is evident that we can have nothing before 
us but the elements of thought and passion. Such 
terms as resolution and determination obtain a peculiar 
significance from the persistence of the thought and 
passion, and also from a feeling of opposition to what- 
ever would resist or change it. 

A contemplated action can be nothing but a thought. 
Often the action, so far as bodily movement is con- 
cerned, is of a very trivial character. It may be the 
utterance of a few words, a yes or a no. The resolu- 
tion of the Christian martyr was to abstain from saying 
" I recant," or from throwing a few grains of incense 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 61 

before the statue of an emperor. But such abstinence 
was followed by death. And friends and enemies 
implored and threatened in order to shake his resolu- 
tion. But in vain. The martyr had one persistent 
purpose — to be faithful to his God. In the alternative 
placed before him he chose death. 

What grand things have been said by poets and 
orators of this unshaken resolve ! The man you cannot 
terrify, or flatter, or persuade, if he really have a great 
purpose, and power to accomplish it, is indeed one of 
the sublimest objects we can contemplate. The author 
of that noble poem, " The Spanish Gipsy," makes one 
of her characters say — 

" You may divide the universe with God, 
Keeping your will intact, and hold a world 
Where He is not supreme." 

The stoic bent on doing what is good and right in 
defiance of the multitude, in defiance of his own self- 
regarding passions, attains, it is generally believed, the 
culminating point of human greatness. The greatness 
lies plainly in the purpose, the thought and passion of 
the man. 

It is worth a remark that we sometimes expect that 
the resolution or choice of a virtuous man should be 
sudden, instantaneous, without a moment's hesitation. 
On other occasions we demand deliberation, and only 
approve the choice that follows on deliberation. If a 
man of honour is asked to tell a falsehood we should 
be disappointed if he did not at once reject* the pro- 
posal ; we expect that from the settled habit of his 
mind he will dismiss it at once, not without some 
feeling of scorn or anger that it should have been 



62 KNOWING AND FEELING. 

made. But if some arduous and difficult enterprise is 
proposed to him we expect that he should deliberate 
before he returns an answer, because a wise man would 
carefully abstain from committing himself to what 
might be beyond his power to accomplish, because only 
light and feather-brained men would rush heedlessly on 
a difficult enterprise, because the resolution that is 
expected from him is one that must embrace all the 
probable dangers ahead. Time for reflection and 
deliberation there must be in such a case. No fitting 
resolution could else be formed. 

But the choice that follows deliberation, and the 
choice that is sudden as lightning, are ultimately re- 
solvable into the same elements of judgment and feel- 
ing, or, as we popularly express them, of reason and 
passion. 

Do you wish to believe that this ever-varying and 
progressive movement of thought and feeling wells 
forth arbitrarily from your own mind 1 Are you re- 
luctant to be the creature, ambitious to be creator 1 Do 
you wish to make these fine lines just quoted — beautiful 
as poetry — literally true, and have a universe of your 

own — 

" A world 
Where He is not supreme " ? 

It seems that all our lines of thought bring us from 
the natural to the supernatural, bring us to that Abso- 
lute Being and Power on which all nature rests. We 
move and live and have our being in God. We exist 
as part of His um verse. This is what I presume is 
meant when we say that " in Him we live and move 
and have our being." 



PART III. 

SPECULATIVE THOUGHT. 

Philosophy is one of those words which have 
traversed various epochs of mental development, and 
have come down to us with different significations not 
strictly compatible with each other. Such words defy 
definition. In the general use of them the old and 
the new significations are both preserved. For an old 
meaning does not instantly drop off when a new mean- 
ing comes in ; both continue to live as long as possible 
together. In such cases there are, in fact, two or more 
words to the mind, while there is only one to the ear or 
the eye, and it depends on the context which word the 
writer is using. Any wisdom or knowledge above that 
of the multitude has passed by the name of Philosophy, 
whether it was moral, or religious, or scientific in its 
character. It was Philosophy that taught a man to 
rise above the tribulations of life. It was Philosophy 
that taught him to rise above life itself, above ordinary 
knowledge, into the fancied empyrean of the pure in- 
tellect. It was Philosophy that taught him to know 
the " causes of things ; " meaning thereby what we now 
call the " order of phenomena." Originally it embraced 
science, and if we open a history of Philosophy, we 



64 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

find ourselves conducted back to the hypothesis of 
Thales, that water was the all-forming, all-sustaining 
element. Even in times close at hand, it was customary 
to speak of the philosophy of Newton. At the present 
moment our most careful writers define the word by 
its contrast with science. The aims and the method 
of science being determined, a kind of thinking that 
lies outside of these shall be denominated Philosophy 
or Speculative Thought. Questions which science can- 
not resolve, or which at present it makes no attempt to 
resolve, are relegated to this category. Such are the 
questions we ask about the Absolute, or Unconditioned 
Existence, or the First Cause of all Things ; such are 
the questions we ask about the nature of mind, regarded 
as a substance, and the whence and whither of the 
human soul. These questions lie at the basis of reli- 
gion. And if the future of the individual mind may 
be regarded as a fit subject of speculative thought, the 
future of this human terrestrial society may be inserted 
in the same list. One can hardly say that science has 
made herself complete mistress of this territory. We 
still debate what is the ideal of a perfect human society 
— vt^hat is the ideal to which we are tending, and the 
realization of which should be the aim of successive 
generations. While this debate lasts our Sociology 
cannot be altogether abstracted from the region of 
Speculative Thought. 

I use the term Philosophy in this modern and 
restricted, but still somewhat vague, sense. Striking 
as the contrast is between it and science on some sub- 
jects, there are others in which this distinction grows 
fainter and fainter as we examine it. Philosophy, in 



A CONTKIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 65 

its best aspects, may be but science in the making; — a 
very slow making, it will be added. I include in it 
certain well-kno^vn theological and social problems; 
some that concern the nature of the individual man, 
and some that concern that organized whole, the human 
society, which has its own progressive movement. 



At all events, in this present era in which we live, 
there is a field of inquiry called Philosophy, in which 
no man steps forward to teach, as he would teach in 
any department of science, as he would teach a system 
of astronomy or chemistry. No man can here present 
himself as the interpreter of a system of truths and 
doctrines which, whether complete or not, is the scien- 
tific creed of all his contemporaries who have studied 
the subject, the scientific creed, let us say, with some 
few diversities, of every university in the world. In 
this region of inquiry professor is arrayed against pro- 
fessor, and one eminent authority is neutralized by 
another authority equally eminent. Every teacher is 
therefore compelled to come before us with the results 
of his own personal inquisitions, with convictions which 
he himself has wrought out with infinite toil ; working 
his way, he also, from the very beginning, both aided 
and embarrassed at every step by the thoughtful utter- 
ances of his conflicting predecessors. It is not necessary 
that he should claim to have a philosophy of his own 
(in the sense of having an original system) ; but he, and 
indeed aU men who are concerned in the study, must 
shape the scheme they finally adopt by their own 
labours. They cannot learn it as they might their 

E 



66 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

botany. They have to choose their theory of the 
universe out of several thrown before them. 

Choose we must ; we can hold a scheme of doctrine 
on no other conditions. The philosopher invites us to 
the discussion of questions that are not decided, on 
which each thinker must come to a decision for himself. 
Herein lies the troubled charm, the deep delight, and 
the peculiar mental discipline of philosophic studies. 
Science tasks the intellect of the student, and tasks it 
severely ; but so far as he is a student only, and not a dis- 
coverer, tasks it only in the apprehension of what another 
teaches. But in Philosophy every student is compelled, 
not indeed to be a discoverer, but to be a judge, and a 
judge in the last resort of whatever claims to be a dis- 
covery or a truth. There is here no arrogance in deciding 
against the highest authority, for, choose which camp you 
will, you are sure to find great champions arrayed against 
you, with whom individually you would blush to com- 
pare yourself The most modest student finds himself in 
the place of a judge before whom great advocates plead; 
he is bent on learning from them all he can, but at last he 
has to "take the papers home," and there decide the point. 
It is a high, and solemn, and somewhat painful self- 
reliance which Philosophy imposes. In other studies I 
am one of the school ; I enter and take my place in 
some social group ; I step with light-hearted alacrity 
into a heritage of truths which have been gradually 
evolved by a succession of enterprising, laborious intel- 
lects. But here I am, against my will, isolated, indi- 
vidualized, compelled to begin the work again from the 
beginning, as if I were some solitary architect bridging 
chaos for the first time. Or let us say there are so 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 67 

many bridges, all of dubious security, and some mere 
wrecks and ruins, out of whose fragments you are 
invited to build afresh. You have neither ambition 
nor power to originate a philosophy — you would so 
willingly know the truth on much easier terms ; but it 
cannot be ; you must at least choose your teacher, 
choose your guide ; if you are capable of implicit faith, 
and. desire only to submit to the Aristotle or the Plato 
of the day, you must still choose one out of several 
candidates for the spiritual supremacy; you must, at 
last, be shut up apart, like cardinals in their cells, to 
elect, from your solitude, the one Infallible. 

We hear Philosophy condemned because of its un- 
certainty. How often lately have its three thousand 
years of obstinate questiqnings been contrasted with 
the onward march of science ! But if Philosophy were 
certain it would become science, and cease to be Phi- 
losophy. Philosophy lies on the confines between night 
and morning ; it is a perpetual dawn ; it cannot also 
be the light of day. Science advances her boundary, 
extends her lines, her circumvallations, but where- 
soever we overlook her ramparts there we encounter 
Philosophy. Whether it is desirable that there should 
be an arena where light and darkness contend together 
— an arena of thought where men of equal knowledge 
and equal power of apprehension see so differently — I 
cannot venture to determine. One would naturally 
say. Give us certainty, give us truth, or at all events 
that universal conviction that passes for truth ; give us 
universal science. Let it be cell science ! Away with 
this chaotic, cloud-encumbered region of speculative 
thought, this alternation of doubt and faith ! Well, the 



68 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

prayer may be wise or not — may be one day granted or 
not ; but such is not at present the intellectual con- 
dition of mankind. There exists for us this field of 
inquiry in which the reflective man of every generation 
is invited to exercise, in solitary, self-reliant manner, 
the utmost power of thought that is in him. And 
what seems strange, it is precisely in this field of in- 
quiry that he meets those problems which wear the 
most momentous aspect to him — problems of God and 
his own soul, and in later times, of the future of col- 
lective humanity. Yes, and our speculative thoughts, 
though you call them but the mists of the morning, 
are amongst the most practical realities of life ; for 
laws and governments, and the moral tone of society, 
are affected by them in a surprising manner. So that 
if the individual thinker were ready to forego a fruit- 
less search, ready to resign what he may have brought 
himself to regard as a morbid curiosity, a mere turbu- 
lent desire for knowledge where knowledge is not 
attainable, society would not willingly permit the re- 
signation. Such has been the craving for certainty, 
where certainty has not been granted, that the philo- 
sopher has again and again turned priest, and con- 
verted into a divine oracle the suggestions of his 
troubled soul. Perhaps it seemed to him inspired by 
Heaven. By this device has he not transformed the 
morning mist, a changeful exhalation of the earth, into 
the eternal rock '? And the device has succeeded for a 
time. But by-and-by the spirit of inquiry — rebelling 
against the mysterious authority, that would repress 
it — was sure to revive. Some rival philosopher, as 
ardent perhaps for intellectual freedom, as his prede- 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 69 

cesser for intellectual and moral government, breaks 
the charm. The rock becomes mist again. We must 
shape it into new forms ; perhaps — who knows ? — into 
forms better suited to the coming time. 

II. 

I remarked at the outset of these papers that one of 
the earliest topics the psychologist has to encounter — 
perception, or our knowledge of the external world — 
led him, whether he desired it or not, into the specu- 
lative region assigned to metaphysics. He is compelled 
to ask himself, what is the nature of that matter we 
say we know ] what is the nature of that mind which we 
say knows or perceives 1 And on the answer he gives 
to these questions may depend the whole character of 
his philosophy. He may take up his position, so to 
speak, in the individual consciousness, regarding the 
external world as, in fact, the phenomena of his own 
mind, a production caused, in part, it may be, by some- 
thing in space, but still a production of his own, in 
which his knowledge begins and ends. Or, if he be- 
lieves in the independent existence of material forms, 
and their movements in space, he may find his point of 
departure out of himself, he may advance from these 
primary existences or facts, through the successive 
stages of a world-development, up to the human mind, 
or, more properly speaking, up to man, since the indi- 
vidual will probably be to him a complex of physical, 
vital, and psychical properties. 

I venture to ask the reader to accompany me for a 
few steps in this region of speculative thought ; so far, 
at least, as to determine which of these two methods. 



70 KNOWINCt and FEELINa : 

or points of departure, we should adopt ; whether we 
should interpret all nature from the conscious man, or 
whether the man himself is not the last and greatest in- 
dividuality produced by the gathered forces of nature — 
forces and their relations which some of us make bold to 
describe as due to the power and intelligence of God. 

Although Ihave already touched upon the nature of 
our knowledge of the material world, I must unavoid- 
ably resume the topic. It is just this knowledge that 
extends and assumes new phases, and becomes all our 
science and half our philosophy. And the psycho- 
logical perplexity in which it lies involved is a hinder- 
ance to our path. Moreover, it so happens that this 
psychological perplexity has been lately revived amongst 
us by some of our most eminent thinkers. Have we 
any knowledge of things in themselves, or of things 
as they exist independently of the percipient 1 Or 
is what we call our knowledge mere phenomena or 
appearances, bred of sensation alone ? 

To many the question itself will appear absurd, such 
confident belief have they in the independent existence 
of material forms and movements. " I can under- 
stand," they would say, " or, at all events, I can aspire 
to understand this proposition — that the whole world 
is dependent on the Power and Intelligence of God : 
that it is in some way, inconceivable to me, the mani- 
festation in space of such Power and Intelligence ; that 
it exists, but is not se//-existent. The distinction is 
hard to seize, but I will do my best to. apprehend it. 
But if you tell me that what I seem to know as exist- 
ing in space is merely a manifestation of my own intel- 
ligence, or some phantasmagoria of the senses, I revolt 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 71 

at the proposition. Surely there was a world in space, 
sun and earth, and innumerable activities, harmonized 
and progressive, before man came upon the scene. 
Will you tell me, with the late Professor of St. An- 
drews, that the world cum me is the only intelligible 
world, the only world (I presume must be meant) in 
which order reigns supreme 1 Or will you tell me, 
with the present Professor of Aberdeen, that all my 
knowledge is but knowledge of my own sensations — 
the cause of such sensations being utterly withdrawn 
from me — that I have, in fact, no knowledge at all, 
only synchronous or successive sensations, their me- 
mories and their anticipations % I will try to conceive 
of the world — and will thank you if you can here assist 
my conceptions — as the act, or innumerable acts, of 
one Being, whom I know as the source of all move- 
ment, force, order, and harmony. But some of these 
activities were put forth before others. There is an 
order in their appearance. I, as an individual, was a 
body before I was a soul. The earth in ^7s individuality 
underwent many changes before it was the vegetable- 
bearing and animal-bearing earth, which it is at pre- 
sent. What is to become of Astronomy and Geology, 
or Physiology itself, if I know nothing of material 
forms and movements, nothing of laws mechanical or 
chemical — know nothing but my own sensations and 
their laws of sequence and combination ? " 

With some such indignant protest many will dismiss 
the controversy at once. But however true it may be 
that science, as well as common-sense,^ demands the con- 
viction of a world of matter and motion existing inde- 
pendently of us the percipients of it, this conviction has 



72 KNOWING AND FEELING t 

been and is still disputed by metaphysicians of more 
than one school of thought. This fundamental faith, 
as some have termed it, has been disputed in our own 
days, and by men of scientific culture. It must be a 
perplexity worth our while to investigate which men of 
highly trained intellects, our own contemporaries, throw 
in our path. It is a perplexity, moreover, of old 
standing, and lies across the threshold of philosophy. 

The perplexity is this. On one hand stands the 
obstinate invincible conviction that solid forms exist 
and move in space. On the other hand, it is triumph- 
antly asked, What is your solid form 1 As the coloured 
form is acknowledged to be only your sensation of 
light, taking this appearance in space, so the solid form 
must be allowed to be only your own sensation of touch 
assuming, directly or indirectly, some localization in 
space. If the form is resolvable into touch or vision, 
the solidity is especially resolvable into certain muscular 
sensations. You cannot begin with knowing that there 
is some body in outer space, and then attach to that 
body your muscular feeling of resistance ; you must 
start from this muscular feeling. The solid form is 
this combination of tactual and muscular sensations. 
How it is that many and various sensations come 
through some function of the brain to assume the 
character of presentations or perceptions, may at present 
be but dimly understood. But it is evident that your 
perceptions are, in their ultimate analysis, your own 
sensations, and it is equally evident that your know- 
ledge of matter is reducible to these perceptions. How, 
then, can you possibly claim a knowledge of matter, 
such as it is apart from you the percipient ? 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 73 

If it is said that these perceptions represent realities, 
the answer is ready, How can we know that they repre- 
sent anything "? A picture represents a thing because 
we know the so-called thing, and see the imitation of it. 
But if the presentation is all that we have, if things and 
their imitations, and all the universe are but, in fact, 
these presentations — how can we get behind or beyond 
them 1 We must rest in them. 

The perplexity seems irremovable. And so it is 
while the premisses here assumed are conceded. They 
cannot be conceded. Sensation, which in itself is a 
pleasure or a pain, cannot be all there is in perception, 
in that presentation, or ideation, which no mortal dis- 
putes. That spreading out of our sensations in space, 
into forms, which, however brought about, is an indis- 
putable fact, is but another name for the perception of 
the relation of position. Localization is impossible 
with one position only, it is the relation perceived or 
apprehended between two or more points in space. 
For this reason I prefer to speak of it as a ju,dgment 
rather than an idea. The idea of space enters in a 
concrete of sensations and judgment. The pure idea 
of space is a subsequent abstraction. In the simplest 
perception there is the intellectual element of judgment. 

Again, this analysis of solidity is manifestly defective. 
In addition to the muscular sensations here spoken of, 
there is the relation perceived between these forms, 
their changes of position, their movements, and mutual 
repulsions — perceived relations which, in other words, 
are our ideas of force or activity. In perception ly the 
hand the moving hand is one body, and the other body 
is brought to our knowledge partly by the contrast 



74 KXOWING AND FEELING : 

apprehended between it and empty space ; it is at first 
that part of space where the movement of the hand is 
impeded, and where also those sensations arise which 
come to be a measure of the resistance. In perception 
hy the sight the body, or form, external to our own is at 
once given to the consciousness. Solidity is the resist- 
ance between form and form, converting form into 
body. Or it may be described as that space-occuimncy 
which we infer to be permanent here and there and 
everywhere around us, as a necessary condition of such 
resistance. 

I do not speak of these sense-forms as representing 
realities, I say that in the evolution of thought they 
become, or usher in a knowledge of realities. The re- 
lations of position, of movement, of resistance — these 
impose on them an objective character. Our own 
sensations, which ushered in all this knowledge, we are 
afterwards able to separate from forms which uphold 
themselves in our consciousness by virtue of these 
relations. The forms belong to space, the movements 
belong to the forms, which now define each other by their 
reciprocal activities. 

Some psychologists introduce at the earliest epochs 
of our consciousness an intuitive idea of causation. 
Our sensations have a cause from without, and this 
cause is our matter. It is a violent supposition which 
I do not find it necessary to make. Some image or 
presentation is first given by the senses and the intel- 
lect, in the manner I have described, and this is re- 
garded as cause of our sensations. It is only the 
scientific or reflective mind that makes a clear dis- 
tinction between matter as the cause of our sensations. 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 75 

and matter as it comes to us clothed in these very sen- 
sations of which we say it is the cause. The infant 
knows the external thing as a hindrance to the move- 
ment of its limbs, as a support to its own body, as 
something it strikes on with its little fist. But the 
impediment to motion excites its muscular sensations, 
and the support, or the thing struck, may give pleasure 
or pain, be soft or hard. What it would call the 
cause of its sensations would be just the concrete per- 
ception made up in part of those very sensations. 

So far, then, from being unable to think a material 
world independent of ourselves as percipients, this is 
the only world we do think of. We make mistakes. 
The unreflective man thinks that colour belongs to the 
object in space. He corrects his mistake, and thinks 
his objective world without the colour. But to get a 
clear notion of this independent world is the aim he 
constantly puts before himself. 

Yet it is just this mode of thinking that some of our 
subtlest contemporaries deny to be possible. Mr. Bain 
cautions us against any such attempt. In making it 
he says, " We are affirming that to have an existence 
out of the mind which we cannot know but as in our 
mind. In words we assert independent existence, while 
in the very act of doing so we contradict ourselves. 
Even a possible world implies a possible mind to per- 
ceive it, just as much as an actual world implies an 
actual mind to perceive it." It is indisputably true 
that the conscious man must find everything, so to 
speak, in his own consciousness. But he finds space 
and time there, that is, he thinks them, and when he 
thinks things as verily belonging to space, and thinks 



76 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

them as acting upon each other, he must inevitably 
think them as independent of himself. His conscious- 
ness is just this mode of thinking. If, indeed, the 
forms which he perceives in space are proved to be 
only his own sensations, he takes them back from 
outer space ; he has detected the delusion ; his sensa- 
tions cannot be the space-occupants he thought he had 
perceived. But forms that support each other in his 
consciousness by their reciprocal attractions, move- 
ments, and repulsions, can be thought of only in one 
way, namely, as belonging to space, and independent of 
the percipient. 

But all is delusion ! — thought as well as sense. So 
some have exclaimed. Space itself is purely subjective. 
Intellect, or judgment, or idea, as well as sensibility, is 
but some activity of mind, whatever mind may be. 

That, again, is very true. Knowledge is some ac- 
tivity of mind, whatever mind may be. Knowledge of 
form and motion is something totally different from 
form and motion themselves. I cannot get further 
than my knowledge. Neither can I escape from my 
knowledge. Universal scepticism is impossible, because 
it is impossible for a living conscious man not to think, 
and to think is to have such and such truths or con- 
victions before us. What is meant by calling space 
subjective? It is, of course, my thought, but the 
nature of the thought cannot be altered by this new 
name. There is but one possible mode of thinking 
space and its contents. The relations apprehended 
between space and the space-occupant, and between the 
space- occupants themselves, these I cannot escape from, 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 77 

and these are tantamount to a conviction of the reality 
of things. 

Mr. Bain would pronounce us very obtuse for not 
perceiving that solidity is nothing hut a muscular sen- 
sation j I am sure that the majority of his critics will 
pronounce that a psychology which leads him to such 
a paradoxical result, must somewhere be defective. In 
his theory, and in Mr. Mill's, there is no other known 
property of what we call matter than the property of 
exciting sensations in us. Therefore we cannot think 
a world but in relation to ourselves. But if we can 
think this property, this relation (I am not quite clear 
whether one of these philosophers would even grant so 
much) — but if we can think this property we can also 
think other properties, other relations, those between 
matter and matter, and thinking these we think a 
world that upholds itself independently of us. We 
believe that Calcutta exists — so many houses, so many 
people, bodies animate and inanimate, a city we may 
go to see ; we do not merely believe that if we cross 
the ocean we shall have a certain series or collection of 
sensations to be called Calcutta. And so of the ocean 
we cross, its property of fluidity is not merely some 
sensation of ours, it is essentially a relationship between 
the solid and the fluent matter. And what of motion ] 
If we see a thing in motion, and then shut our eyes, 
and afterwards open them again when the thing is in 
another part of the earth or sky, do we not believe in the 
absolute motion of the thing % Do we merely believe 
this, that if we had kept our eyes open we should have 
continued to see it move ] 



78 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

I beg to observe that it is not to any tribunal of instinct 
or common-sense that I would carry this question. It 
is our latest conceptions of matter, and not our earliest, 
to which I would appeal. It required some advance in 
the science of optics, and some knowledge of the organ of 
sight, before it could be clearly understood that colour had 
in fact no existence in the object — that so far as the ob- 
ject or the inorganic world is concerned, it. is a peculiar 
movement. And it seems to have required some reflec- 
tion before force or momentum, as due simply to rapi- 
dity of movement, or the mass of the moving body, 
was quite separate from that sensation of eff'ort which 
accompanies our muscular movements, and in which the 
popular mind sees the force itself Common-sense has 
the trick of forgetting how slowly it learnt some of its 
most confident and fundamental convictions. What 
cannot ]be possibly driven out of space, what may be 
.shattered into fragments or driven beyond our atmo- 
sphere, but cannot be expelled from space — that shall 
be our matter. But this favourite definition which 
common-sense utters as if it never doubted it, we owe 
to the science of chemistry. It was the chemist who first 
taught us that what is burnt is not destroyed, has only 
changed its form; taught us the marvellous transfor- 
mations from the solid to the fluid, from the fluid to the 
vapour, from the vapour back to the solid — taught us 
that in each of these states the same matter has its 
peculiar properties or relations to other matter. 

We call upon the psychologist to explain the actual 
human thought that is in us ; he must not substitute 
another for it and then explain that. 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 



III. 

I ask myself wliat is the last conception we form of 
Inatter. For those who are agreed that they know it 
as an objective reality in space, differ in the description 
or definition they would give of this reality. 

I suppose we all have the same idea of motion, but 
of matter and force thoughtful men give different ac- 
counts. According to one theory there is always the 
same amount of motion in the universe, and force is only 
the transference of motion from one body to another. 
Viewed in the light of this theory, force is a sequel to 
motion, it is the effect of a moving body on some other 
body. These theorists see, in imagination, every mole- 
cule of matter in incessant motion, vibratory or rotary, 
and explain all the phenomena of chemistry, as well as 
of heat and light, by changes of direction and velocity 
of movement. For motion itself no cause can be 
assigned by the human mind. The more generally 
received theory regards matter as capable of exerting 
force, that is of originating and directing motion in 
other bodies, even though itself stationary, or, at all 
events, independently of its own motion, for absolutely 
stationary perhaps no matter is. Attraction of gravity 
and chemical affinity seem to them to demand this con- 
cession. Here the term force attains another meaning, 
difficult to apprehend, yet perhaps not more so than that 
force of momentum and pressure which the most ardent 
seeker of simplicity is compelled to admit. A third 
class of theorists has converted the atom itself into a 
force. These speak of .space-occupancy as itself a force. 
Here we lose sight of our old landmarks. Force was 



80 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

the action of Space-occupant on Space-occupant. If our 
Space-occupants are themselves a force, force must be 
conceived as the entity we contrast with the void of 
space, or as the acting of some supernatural agent on 
or in space. 

This last notion, which resolves both ftiatter and force 
into the action, or innumerable actions, of one Being 
to which we assign no place at all, either because it 
fills all space, or is altogether unrelated to space, is a 
great favourite with speculative thinkers, and has a 
fascination in it I readily admit. We see the idea of 
Being which at first presented itself as broken up, and 
limited to the moving and resisting thing in space, 
develop itself till it attains the unity, and majesty, 
and spirituality to which we give the sublimest of all 
names. But I decline at present to ascend to these 
heights of speculation. I take my stand on a lower 
level — one, however, from which the ascent to such 
heights may be not impracticable. 

The advance of science may possibly unite all men 
in one definition of matter and force. In our present 
imperfect knowledge I can detect nothing more clear 
than this — that the space-occupant is marked out and 
individualized to us by its capability of receiving im- 
pressions, as well as of communicating them. The 
union of passivity and activity distinguishes the atom. 
Its activity is the result of its passivity ; its passivity 
is, in fact, but the expression of the activity of some 
other atom. 

It is very easy to resolve passivity into a form of 
activity. The capability of receiving impressions is 
shown only in some action ; but then, when we turn to 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 81 

action in the material world, we require the acted on. 
We may either express the relation by saying that force 
must be dual, or by the old terms passivity and activity. 
In either case we have to conceive the space-occupants 
as being there, else how conceive of their relations to 
each other as active and passive, or as acting together "l 

But — and this is the point on which I desire to lay 
stress — while the relative demands the positive, or the 
two positives, while every case of action requires as 
prior condition the two space-occupants, our positives, 
our space-occupants, reveal themselves only in their 
relations, only in this co-agency. You can think of 
either apart, because every whole has parts, and these 
may separately occupy the mind, but the parts have 
gathered all by which you think them from their rela- 
tions to each other. Always it will be found that some 
whole formed by the relation of parts presents itself to 
us whenever we reflect upon our conception of matter 

I confidently, therefore, conclude that, in addition to 
space-occupancy, motion, and force, we must define 
matter as that which organizes itself, or is always organ- 
ized. The first or simplest individuality we can de- 
scend to will be found to be a whole and parts, a 
complexity, in relation with other complexities. 

And not only is matter never known to us except as 
organized, it is apparently organizing itself in new and, 
as we think, in advanced modes. But in every stage 
what we call new does not come in as a distinct and 
separate novelty, it is a combination of old and new. 
Life is more than chemistry, but it is chemistry also. 
Mind is more than life, but it is life also. 

Try to think of matter in its simplest conditions. 

F 



82 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

We say of water, for instance, that it is a fluid, that it 
has a peculiar movement called flowing, which becomes 
possible by its relation to a more solid surface. But if 
the water is stationary, what then ? Perhaps I answer 
it has a potential fluidity. What do I mean by this 
potentiality ? What will he does not now exist. What 
now exists is a stationary mass. Science responds that 
a certain coherence of particles exists, such that the 
flowing movement will occur if the solid surface on 
which the water rests is altered, or its equilibrium is 
otherwise disturbed. A potential existence means then 
the existence of those main conditions on which some 
expected future depends. This answers very well in 
the case of fluidity. Now I advance to the particle 
itself of matter. I define it as simply as I can by its 
impenetrability. Here, too, if I have a complex body 
approached by another body, I can say that it has a 
potential impenetrability, even before the collision takes 
place. It has that coherence of particles which will 
enable it to resist dispersion or division. But I am 
concerned with one single particle. How am I to 
represent its potentiality of resistance? I cannot re- 
present it at all. My unit of existence is not one 
atom, but two or more in their related activitide. It is 
organized matter I alone know. 

IV. 

Having justified, I trust, the ordinary conviction on 
which science proceeds of a world in space prior to, or 
independent of, human thought, I may contemplate 
mind as it is related to this world, as it appears in its 
place in the series of developments. 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 83 

Astronomy speculates on the genesis of a planetary 
system from some revolving nebula in a surrounding 
ether. Geology, with far more certainty, teaches the 
changes in the organization of our globe fitting it for 
life, or for new life. The physiologist takes up the 
marvellous tale, showing the development of life, of 
sensation, of thought. Even the metaphysician, who 
bids us despair of forming the conception of a material 
world independent of the percipient, commences his, 
in many respects, admirable treatise with a careful 
description of the organs of sense and locomotion, of 
the brain and the nerves. Apparently he acknow- 
ledges that the psychical manifestations he intends to 
discourse upon, are postponed till certain organs are 
grown. I will not ask for an explanation of this 
apparent discrepancy : this would only take us back 
to the debate we have just left, and which we must 
consider closed, or we shall never be able to advance at 
all. The physiologist shows us a heart beating in the 
embryo before a brain is formed. Life is there — -that 
new activity we call vital movement — but not sensation. 
He bids us wait the growth of nerves and a brain 
before the psychical properties of feeling and knowing, 
before a consciousness can be developed. Such is the 
order of evolution, or creation. 

Eeflecting upon ourselves as conscious creatures, each 
individual seems shut up in his own consciousness. 
All that is without, — the physical world, and even the 
society that surrounds him, — are but his own thoughts. 
How often is it said that each of us has a world of his 
own that nothing can enter ! This is the individuality 
which the metaphysieian delights to contemplate. The 



84 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

Ego which he generally describes is just the conscious- 
ness itself, viewed as a permanent reality, or referred 
to some permanent reality known only as that which is 
conscious. 

Such attitude the reflective mind assumes. But, 
pursuing our reflections, we detect that, if there be a 
real knowledge, and a thing known, then the mere 
faculty to know is incomplete, or nugatory, without 
the thing to be known. The thing most intimately 
and constantly known is our own body and its move- 
ments. If, therefore, the that which knows is a distinct 
entity, it is as good as nothing till there is something 
to know. The faculty of knowledge is justly esteemed 
• as the greatest or most exalted property that has come 
into the world, but the world and the living body must 
have been there before it. A self was never attained 
without the union of a knowing, and a thing known. 

But we not only need this body of ours as a lodg- 
ment for this new property, or entity, and as that 
which is first of all and constantly to he known. It 
seems as if the new entity could not act at all, except 
in a certain condition of the vital organs, or some of 
them. We need the eye to see with, the ear to hear 
with ; we need the brain, not only to act with these 
organs, but to act as reviver of that knowledge obtained 
through them. The modern anatomist has drawn from 
its hiding-place, behind the eye and the ear, this strange 
organ — so shapeless to look at, so wondrous in the new 
activities it develops, or in the part it plays in their 
development. It is suspected that there occurs no 
change in consciousness that is unaccompanied by some 
action of this organ ; and it is moreover supposed that 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 85 

in many cases such action leaves behind it some slight 
alteration in the structure or composition of the brain 
itself, whereby it is rendered more fit for that very 
action. I know not whether it be so, but Habit, which 
lies at the basis of all individual progress, has been 
explained as a growth of this description. 

How simple a thing was nutrition to our forefathers ! 
We fed this body, we stuffed these pipes of ours, and 
there an end. No doubt the body could not do its 
work without food. We were satisfied with under- 
standing this truth, and giving it the necessary supply. 
But modern science has pushed its curiosity beyond 
this. It has watched the course of this nutrition, taken 
note of the why it was wanted, seen the tissue waste 
and disintegrate in its very functions, seen it hold its 
permanence in a perpetual transmutation. I need not 
enter into details ; how far the physiologist has been 
able to trace a specific function to the several parts of 
the nervous and cerebral system, — which' are thus per- 
petually being destroyed and restored, — is known to 
every reader of these papers. 

But observe the sort of revolution in our thinking 
that has taken place. It was always recognised that 
we wanted the material outside world as the common 
instructor of us all, the common object of our know- 
ledge. When we speak of true or false in the events 
of life, or the theories of science, it is tacitly under- 
stood that, while there are millions of minds, there is 
but one real world from which they all draw their 
knowledge. Two men differ in their measurement of 
Chimborazo. Let them go and measure it again, and 
yet again, till they both agree. Chimborazo stands 



86 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

there, impartial umpire. General assent is perhaps 
your synonym for truth, but how is general assent 
obtained or preserved, unless by the teaching of one 
great instructor? Now, in these modern times, this 
outside world, this environment we live in, is also 
recognised as taking its part — through this process of 
nutrition — in building up the learner himself, building 
up tissues that seem to feel ; seem 

For here comes in the question, often so angrily dis- 
cussed amongst us, whether the psychical properties 
which constitute consciousness are properties of the old 
substance we called matter, or whether properties so 
novel do not imply an altogether new substance or 
entity, we call spirit ? A question difficult to decide. 
Indeed I am more impressed with the difficulty, than 
with the extreme importance of the question, which 
does not appear to me to be quite of that momentous 
nature which our controversies assume it to be. For 
say there is this separate substance, called spirit, what 
have we before us in man ? A new organization, a new 
whole, composed of this spirit and the vital frame. 
And in this new whole only is the spirit found, whose 
first office and manifestation is the knowing this body 
and what immediately surrounds it. This new indi- 
viduality, Man, is like every other individuality in 
nature — a complexity, a whole composed of parts, 
whose unity consists in some harmony of forces or 
properties. 

Amongst the speculative thinkers of Greece and 
Eome, and amongst the early fathers of the Church, 
it was the prevailing opinion that the soul was a kind 
of ethereal matter. With this species of dualism we 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 87 

need not now concern ourselves. Matter has grown so 
ethereal under the investigations and theories of modern 
science that the imagination toils in vain to represent 
what are nevertheless described as physical agents. 
That ether, whose pulsations are light for us, presents 
a subtlety we cannot go beyond, for we strive in vain 
to apprehend it. If mere tenuity and refinement is 
what the imagination seeks, we find these sufficiently 
amongst declared physical phenomena. 

The speculative thinker, however, wanted more than 
refinement, he wanted for his new substance perma- 
nence; he wanted a one permanent substance which 
he could call himself, and which, existing through all 
surrounding changes, might exist, itself unchanged, 
even in other worlds. He seems slowly to have con- 
vinced himself that this something permanent could 
not be any form of matter which is always in move- 
ment, decomposing and recomposing, and he devised 
the unextended substance ; spirit stood out in clear con- 
trast to matter. Who, indeed, first introduced this 
form of dualism, what Eastern or Western sage, I know 
not. It is, perhaps, as old as philosophy itself. But 
it was not the popular philosophy of Europe, so histo- 
rians write, till the time of Descartes, who had much 
to do in giving it shape and currency. 

This dualism has always held its ground in defiance 
of notorious difiiculties. I need hardly mention them. 
How is motion, it is asked, of the extended substance 
to afi'ect the unextended 1 And that motion of a 
mechanical or molecular kind is connected with feeling, 
and feeling again with motion, is surely an indisputable 
feet. We all know how Leibnitz contrived his " pre- 



88 KXOWING AND FEELING : 

established harmony" to escape from this difficulty, 
and we all know that the result of his pre-established 
harmony was to make the difficulty more prominent 
than ever. Men admired the ingenious contrivance, 
but only thought the more of the perplexity from which 
it was intended to relieve them. 

But the difficulties are not all on one side. For 
instance, it is the law of physics that contact of moving 
matter produces motion. Now in the brain there must 
be a point where motion no longer produces motion, 
but feeling. How can we reconcile this with our law 
of physics 1 The brain, as material substance, is under 
the laws of motion, and must respond to impulse — by 
motion and by all the motion due to that impulse. 
There is no room for any other effect. To say that 
sensation is a transmuted force is simply to say that 
there comes in a new quality, which bears, or may bear, 
in its degree, some correspondence with the mechanical 
force of motion for which it is substituted. But the 
substitution remains. At a certain moment matter no 
longer responds to motion by motion, but by feeling. 
What has become of our laws of motion 1 It is true 
that in the phenomena of vital movement we may be 
said to have already departed from the laws of physics, 
for here a movement ensues which appears to have 
little or no correspondence with the impulse which 
prompts it. But here the physicist, with his still half- 
understood laws of electricity and galvanism, may make 
his protest — file a sort of lie exeat regno, till the case is 
decided. 

That there is this New Becoming is the great and 
indisputable fact ; marvellous, as indeed every Becom- 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 89 

ing has been and is. A sharper distinction there is 
not in all nature than that between motion and sensi- 
bility. There is no possibility of confounding them, 
nor does one slide into the other. The utmost rapidity 
of motion cannot be conceived as approximating to 
feeling by reason of its rapidity. Sensation is as dis- 
tinct from motion, as motion from rest. 

But this New Becoming makes its appearance in a 
vital frame, full of its own peculiar movements. Now 
do you ask, What feels 1 Not surely that vital frame 
minus its feeling. As moving-thing, or as space-occu- 
pant, it does not feel. The only answer open to us is 
that this concrete made up of motion and of feeling — 
feels. The answer looks at first like a mere subter- 
fuge, but it is the answer with which we are obliged to 
content ourselves in all similar cases. What moves '? 
Not the space-occupant merely as such. You add the 
very property of motion to the space-occupant, and then 
say it moves. What thinks ] Not a moving or vitalized 
body. You add the property of thought, and then say, 
The man thinks. A new whole, a new individuality 
has entered into the world. To ask for its origin is to 
approach the problem of creation, or to view matter as 
organizing itself, or as developing still new properties. 

Cause in Science is the series, is the order ; Cause in 
Metaphysics is the origin of the series or order. 

Science is perfectly right in limiting itself to its own 
Causation. But all that it teaches only stimulates us 
the more to ask what it is that develops the series, the 
order, the organizations ever advancing, as it seems, in 
their nature. It may be deemed but a poor account to 
give of our individuality, or personal being, that it is 



90 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

just this new whole that moves, and grows, and thinks. 
But if you would extend this account you must be pre- 
pared to answer the question, What is the origin of 
the whole world as it develops itself in space and in 
time, in physical and in psychical properties? And 
accordingly there are not wanting those who say that 
their Ego itself rests on the Omnipotent. 

What is it that resists us in the simplest stone, or 
merest clod, we strike our foot against? It is some 
aggregate of atoms held together by a force .of coher- 
ence, and which we further describe by this very re- 
sistance. In the clod of earth stands and grows a 
living plant. Its very materials are gathered from the 
soil and the air, by the aid of the inconceivably rapid 
movements of heat and light. Do you ask, What 
grows and lives 1 We say it is the plant, and we 
define the plant by this very life and growth. To 
atoms and their chemistry was added that by means of 
which a new whole, the living plant, came into exist- 
ence. Up to the plant walks the animal, and grazes 
on it. This creature grows, and feels, and moves spon- 
taneously. What feels? Just this animal which we 
describe by many properties, and last and chiefly, by 
this very property of feeling. Such property had stolen 
into the world, and manifested itself there, and formed 
that new concrete or whole which we call the sensitive 
animal. There is no other answer. And if you ask, 
What thinks ? It is man, another organism into which 
this property has entered, greatest of properties yet 
known, and known as part of this new whole. At 
every stage we have a new organization, or indivi- 
duality, composed of old and new. Whence came the 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 91 

new*? Whence came the oldl This is the problem 
of creation. What moves 1 admits but of one answer. 
It is this very compound of space-occupancy and motion. 
What introduced motion into the universe is another 
question. What thinks 1 It is this very creature who 
lives, and moves, and feels, and also thinks. What 
introduced thought into the universe, and so constructed 
this new individuality 1 That is another question. 

This incessant hecoming, how are we to deal with it 1 
Am I to accept it as an ultimate fact, like being itself 1 
for indeed every being (in the form it wears to us) was 
also a becoming. Am I to devise an "unknowable 
cause," and attribute to it our evolving series 1 Or 
may I not advance at once to the supposition that this 
evolving whole we have before us existed as a thought 
before it existed in space, or as an actuality ? May I 
not leap at once to this supposition, and deduce what 
I can from it '? What Aas been determines what is, and 
both together what will he. But if the past determines 
the future, does not that whole that is to be determine 
every part of the series 1 And how can this be con- 
ceived but on the supposition that the whole pre- 
existed in thought 1 

On the great subject of the creation of the world the 
wisest, we are told, are the most reticent. One feels 
it almost a presumption to discuss it at all. And what 
says Matthew Arnold in one of his terse, melodious, 
and thoughtful verses 1 — 

" Achilles ponders in his tent, 

The kings of modern thought are dumb, 
Silent they are, though not content, 
And wait to see the future come." 



92 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

A mere soldier of the rank and file would venture to 
suggest to those who have a certain repugnance to the 
term, or the idea of creation, that an evolution that re- 
sults in ever new individualities would be no bad defini- 
tion of creation. And such an evolution makes itself 
known to us. 

No justice could be done to the religious problem 
without some preparatory study of man in his social 
and emotional aspects. And our present concern was 
to determine what philosophical writers often call a 
stand-point. Ours cannot be the individual man ; but 
the great cosmos in which he appears — so much of it 
as we can embrace. We are accustomed to say that 
we proceed from the simple to the complex, and from 
the lower to the higher. But the simplest to which 
we can descend is still a complexity, and in proceeding 
from the lower to the higher we confessedly indicate 
an order only of development, we do not say that the 
lower actually produces the higher. Either the whole 
development is to be accepted as one absolute fact, or 
we make attempt to pass on to the developing power 
and intelligence. But always it must be our endeavour 
to study the individual as part of the whole cosmos, so 
far as that is revealed to us. 

We are confessedly in the region of philosophy or 
speculative thought, where it would be unbecoming to 
dogmatize. For myself this obstinate conception 
occurs again and again, that the whole, as it develops, 
and will be developed, in space and time, determined 
all the parts of that whole- — which it could only do on 
the supposition that it pre-existed in thought, the 
thought, therefore, of some Being capable of so think- 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 93 

ing and so acting, — not thinking or acting as a human 
being. I find this conviction even stronger in me than 
that which demands some one permanent being (con- 
scious or unconscious) as mere cause of all this Becom- 
ing we witness ; though the two lines of thought may 
easily be harmonized. But whatever conception we 
strive to form of this speculative nature, it is indis- 
putable fact that matter exists nowhere for us but as 
organized ; it rises before us as ordered — the expression 
of reason as we think. It is ever a whole, and ever a 
becoming. Need I add that we know only a small 
portion of that whole, even as hitherto developed, and 
must make up our cosmos of the very little, we do 
know ? 



PART IV. 

OUR PASSIONS. 
I. 

Before we approach the problems of Sociology, we 
should frame for ourselves some distinct ideas of man 
as a social being ; we should understand his passions, 
or what we should call the emotional side of the 
human consciousness. 

As I have endeavoured to show, in treating of the 
feelings or passions, as in dealing with our cognitions, 
it IS still the same one consciousness we have before us 
— which is ever composed of cognitions and feelings. 
Our Perceptions are some union of sensations and judg- 
ments ; and in Thought our perceptions have become 
memories, and our sensations have become passions. 
To think of a pain and pleasure, as Mr. James Mill 
and other analytical writers have observed, is itself a 
new pain or pleasure ; it is in fact a passion ; is a 
regret or a fear, an anger or a hope. 

Every passion rests on some cognition. Love and 
Hate are unintelligible without an object of love or 
hate, and these feelings are modified according to their 
objects, and the kind of actions they lead to. We 
have no way of defining our passions but by describing 
the objects, the events, the various cognitions insepar- 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 95 

ably combined with them. Beyond the broad distinc- 
tion that some are pleasurable and others painful, we 
should be utterly unable to describe our passions if we 
attempted to separate them from the cognitions with 
which they are thus indissolubly connected — forming 
together one moment or act of consciousness. How 
distinguish Ambition from any other excitement, Envy 
from any other vexation, unless by marking out the 
kind of objects, the kind of acts, these feelings are 
combined with 1 

Whether we think of the past or the future, whether 
ideation shall take the shape of memory or anticipa- 
tion, seems to decide at once on the nature of the 
feeling. The past pleasure becomes a regret, or it 
becomes a hope or a desire. The past pain thought of 
only in the past is anger and unmitigated vexation ; 
mix with it thought of that action to which it may 
prompt, and it becomes^ revenge. 

Knowing and Feeling are the two psychical elements 
of the human consciousness. Will, or bodily action, is 
the relation between this consciousness and the muscles 
of the human frame. 

The intellectual and emotional elements can neither 
of them be extolled at the expense of the other. To 
the reason or intellect we may very justly ascribe all 
that is progressive in man, — his choice, his self-govern- 
ment, his knowledge, his advancement even in this 
matter of passion. But in his passions or emotions 
lies all that we call his happiness or misery. Take 
either element away and the man is no longer man ; a 
human consciousness is no longer before us. 

Our own passions, with all that results from them, 



96 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

become the objects of reflection. We learn to prefer 
love to hate : not by any means the first truth we 
learn ; in its fulness it is rather the last and the most 
essential to human well-being. All passions equally 
assert themselves while they rest in the state of actual 
passion. But as intelligence advances Hate becomes 
subordinate to Love. Hate at last is compelled to claim 
admittance on the plea of doing the offices of Love, 
accomplishing the purposes of a world-embracing 
Benevolence. Hate limited to anger against the wrong, 
the vile, the malicious, is admitted; in its own first 
nature as the triumphant inflictor of pain it is reproved. 
Love, on the contrary, in its proper character as the 
giver of pleasure, has been expanded and approved, and 
becomes the divine in man. 

Feeling is not only that which constitutes us happy 
or miserable, and so gives its very value to our know- 
ledge (for even the mathematician amongst abstractions . 
— that are to remain abstractions — has a gratification 
in the solution of his problems without which they 
never would have been problems for him), but it is the 
element in our consciousness which is more especially 
concerned in that onward movement from thought to 
thought, and from thought to action, which constitutes 
the very energy of life. 

All continuous thinking must be also varied think- 
ing, that is, there must be some movement or change, 
in however limited an arena, or the conscious life 
ceases. Now, we are not sufficiently acquainted with 
the nature of cerebral movements to determine all their 
laws. There may be, and probably is, some cerebra- 
tion not impelled by passion or feeling of any kind. 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. ' 97 

But what is very patent to us is this, that all thinking 
other than a dream, or dream-like reverie, or such as is 
manifestly dependent on the senses for the direction 
that it takes, all that the adult mind cares to designate 
as its thinking, is carried on by an energy in some way 
imparted by desire, or an energy the presence of which 
becomes known to us by this apparent relation between 
desire and the onward progress of life. 

There is no essential difference between thinking for 
a purpose and acting for a purpose. Physiologicalhj, we 
should say that in the one case the movements were 
limited to the brain, in the other case they had extended 
through the motor nerves to the muscles. Psychologically, 
we can only take notice of the fact that our passionate 
or emotional thought, our purpose, has led to other 
thoughts, or led also to movements of the limbs. All 
energetic thinking might be called a willing. This 
momentum from thought to thought Vv^e call our activity. 
We say that man possesses this activity. A solitary 
thought, if such can be imagined, gives no sentiment of 
power, no idea of activity. 

The great law of Habit, on which so much rests, let 
us bear in mind, is to us one of nature's activities known. 
Our knowing it is all we have to do with as conscious 
beings. It lies in our consciousness just as any other 
of the great laws of nature ; it is there as a cognition. 
The knowledge of it gives us power, but we can no more 
explain it than we can explain any other of the laws of 
nature. The human being, because he knows what laws 
of habit are presiding over his consciousness, can take 
advantage of them — just as he can take advantage of 
any law of hydrostatics; here, as elsewhere, knowledge 

G 



98 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

is power. He practises his art — he persists in en- 
deavouring, in purposing ; he has no conception how- 
it is that practice makes perfect — but he knows it 
will ; the schoolboy repeats his lesson, he knows that 
by the repetition he shall learn it, but neither he nor 
perhaps any one else knows anything more about this 
wondrous mechanism of memory. The moralist bids 
us beware of the cup once taken, the lie once told — 
the only once may break a habit ; he bids us practise a 
virtue as we practise an art, if we would be perfect. 

I must .again observe that whether we call our state 
of mind a- thought, or a passion, or a will, it is still the 
same one consciousness we have described as made up 
of Knowing and Feeling. We call it a Cognition or 
a Thought when the intellectual element which we 
have called judgment is prominent, we call it a sensa- 
tion or a passion when the sensitive or emotional 
element prevails. What distinguishes will from other 
states of consciousness, is the special cognition and 
passions or sentiments that are involved in it, — special 
because they relate to the special organs of locomotion 
or muscular activity. The limb moves — not assuredly 
in the first instance by a distinct intention or purpose 
on our part that it should move, but by the laws of 
vitality or of animal life — the limb moves and meets re- 
sistance, which has the effect of stimulating or re-exciting 
the organs of locomotion — exciting the sensation that 
is appropriate to them. These sensations in the next 
stage become desire, become a passion — desire of 
movement, passion of thwarted desire ; these, with the 
cognition of the resisting obstacle and the sensation 
excited in the limb, constitute our sense of effort. This 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 99 

sense of effort, so far from being a very simple matter, 
has in it sensations, cognitions, passions. 

So Personality is. a special knowing. That the person 
is itself an oljed of thought becomes evident as well 
when we attempt to think ourselves as soul as when 
we attempt to think ourselves as body. Thought itself, if 
we could imagine it deprived of these objects, body, 
and soul in body (made thinkable to us in some manner 
because localized in the body), would be impersonal. 
Such thought would be an eternal I^ow : the past and 
future is the ever present consciousness. 

This last conjecture may seem hypothetical, and I am 
quite aware on what delicate and subtle ground I am 
treading in this matter of personality. Our best 
authorities have held that the consciousness at once 
reveals the it and the / — the object and subject. Thought 
is necessarily / think — such is its formula. Well, let us 
adopt this view. Still the nature of the / has to be 
revealed and apprehended. And if Thought is always 
/ thiiik, still I think this / either as body or soul, and 
it becomes the object carried by me into the past and 
future. The subject must become an object when we 
think of it as having been in the past, and as that 
which will be in the future. What we call personal 
identity must be some personal body or soul. Certain 
philosophers of the associative school, who are assured 
of nothing but a train of sensations and thoughts, must 
find this problem of personal identity (as one of the 
most eminent of that school has confessed) peculiarly 
difiicult. 

It is because amongst our memories and anticipa- 
tions is ever found the same one body alone ever pre- 



100 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

sent, that personal identity arises. I do not regard, I 
may say, memory as any distinct faculty ; it is merely 
the development of the consciousness. All conscious- 
ness is founded on the relation of time. Memory and 
anticipation are merely experience of these relations. 

But I must disentangle myself from these subtleties 
and proceed to some general remarks on the passions, 
of a more practical character. 

We may notice how soon in the history of mental 
development sensation becomes passion. It does so the 
moment a pain is attributed to the object or person 
before us ; it then becomes anger. It does so the 
moment that it is remembered or anticipated, the 
moment it is thought of. I presume our passions 
require sensation as their condition. I presume that a 
creature who had known no pain would hardly know 
fear. But still the passion is a new development. And 
we should look in vain if we expected to find every fear 
precisely justified in its degree by any experienced pain. 
Probably passionate men are for the most part sensitive 
men, yet the anger any given man feels will not be 
measured by the pain he has suffered. Then we have 
the startling fact that to think of another s pain becomes 
compassion. Here we have a new development affiliated 
to the older fact of sensation, but not to be measured 
by it. We could not speak of such a degree of sensa- 
tion being transformed into such a degree of compassion, 
as if we were dealing with chemical agents. The con- 
scious life has a certain progressive, expansive develop- 
ment of its own. Then again there is that other 
sympathy, when the passion, whatever it may be, is 
communicated from one to the other by tone or gesture 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 101 

— SO that a number of people shall feel merely by this 
communication a passion in a far greater degree than 
each of them could do singly. How in all anger grows 
into rage when a multitude comes under the same 
passion. 

It is evident that any analogy drawn from chemistry 
or chemical analysis soon breaks down. We are not in 
presence of mechanical and chemical or even vital laws, 
but of the laws of consciousness, which though based 
on these are distinct from them. If we permit ourselves 
to say that matter that is vitalized has new laws and 
properties, so we may say that matter that is mentalized 
has still other laws. 

But the fact which above all seems to me to demand 
attention is the manner in which passions grow and 
modify with our thoughts. In other words, our two- 
fold consciousness presents ever its new phases of 
feeling with its new mode or enlargement of cogni- 
tion. How this is to be presented physiologically I 
pretend not to say. The notion that feeling is in one 
portion of the brain and thought or ideation in another, 
does not assist one in the least, — rather adds to one's 
perplexity, for how conceive the co-operation and re- 
spective influence of the organs^ Nor do I believe 
that our most eminent anatomists or physiologists hold 
to such division. I should find it easier to imagine 
that what was action in thinking was also sensation. 
The fact, however, is indisputable, that while Thought 
or intelligence is based in the first instance on sensation 
— the thought itself becomes the parent of new emotions, 
which new emotions or passions become in their turn 
the materials of Thought by being remembered or anti- 



102 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

cipated in conjunction with the objects with which they 
were first connected. 

(All along it is / see it, / think it, I excogitate it, 
as if that vision, that thought, which really constitutes 
the / were something different from the I that saw it, 
thought it. As many metaphysicians have pointed out, 
the / here and its it both include the whole conscious- 
ness. The I is the consciousness spoken of as belong- 
ing to some being — which is the specific thought plus 
this reference of it to some permanent subject. What 
we have to study is consciousness, and the one Evolu- 
tion of Thought and Feeling.) 

This does not prevent me from saying and believing 
that this activity of thought and feeling belongs to me 
as an individual, because such thought is also evolved 
in my consciousness. 

That such evolution has its law is not inconsistent 
with the fact that it evolves in a certain individual, 
which individuality is composed of other and more 
peculiar elements. When we are discussing the ques- 
tion of will or free-will, we are instantly referred to a 
certain spontaneous activity. Now, if I am to study 
human action, I find this highest activity, that which 
is to govern all else, is the reason and feeling of a man. 
I do not deny to the man this activity. And it comes 
to him, as it were, direct from Heaven. Direct from 
Heaven, and yet with a method. I find men impatient 
if they are reminded that it is not possible for a man 
to leap at once from the thoughts of a child to those of 
a man, or from the thoughts of a clown to those of a 
Socrates. But the man nevertheless energizes — as con- 
scious man in his consciousness — he attributes this 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 103 

activity to a self made up in part of this property, in 
part of other vital and mechanical properties.. 

II. 

When we pass, as I have said, beyond the distinction 
pleasureable or painful, or the distinction of degree, as 
gentle or violent, we describe our passions by the 
objects that call them forth, or the events they lead 
to. To think of the object of our love or hate is the 
only way of recalling the passion ; to think of some act 
of retaliation is the way to keep alive our anger or 
revenge. If anger needs nothing but the presence of 
the perceived object, revenge is essentially a thought, 
or thought — supported as it lives in and through the 
contemplation of that blow anger would or should have 
dealt, and still contemplates the dealing of. With 
revenge fear mingles very soon, and if we strike the 
first blow out of sheer anger, we strike the second out 
of fear that the injury^ should be repeated. We have 
not to wait for the calculations of expediency before we 
strike, wound, or destroy, to prevent the repetition of 
our pain. Fear acts the expediency at once, and the 
first task of reflection is to moderate her energy. 

To think of another as the source of pleasure is to 
love him. It is the simplest phase of a feeling destined 
to many modifications as knowledge and thought ex- 
pand. Some would hardly honour the feeling with the 
name of love till it had advanced one stage further, to 
the contemplation and desire of giving pleasure, — a 
new desire, a tenderness and a joy and a sense of 
power withal which we learn keenly to appreciate in 
others and in ourselves. Next, there enters the pleasure 



104 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

of being loved, of being the object of affection, and this 
without any necessary reference to positive benefits 
which may flow from such affection. Men who love to 
be loved are generally those least desirous to receive 
actual benefits from those who love them. 

(I would suggest in a parenthesis that the sentiment 
of Beauty is a modification of that of Love. It has in 
it the same tenderness, something of the same yearning 
to give pleasure — yearning that has no way of mani- 
festing itself in action. It has been often objected to 
the association-theory that there is a radical difference 
between the pleasure of sensation and the feeling of 
beauty. Fundamentally the theory may be correct, 
but it should be understood that the sensations of 
pleasure have in their reproduction in memory taken 
the form of passion. The sentiment of Beauty is more 
akin to the passion of love than to the direct sensation 
of pleasure.) 

Approbation is love with a reason given for it. 
There is judgment of some kind in all thinking, and 
therefore in all loving, but in approbation the judg- 
ment stands out conspicuous, and challenges examina- 
tion. 

That we admire strength and despise feebleness is 
founded on a very patent judgment of the excellent 
results of strength. But here we may notice the eff'ect 
of comparison or contrast in heightening our admiration. 
I suppose if all had had the same degree of strength 
or courage there would have been no energetic admira- 
tion of these qualities : it would have required a certain 
philosophic or reflective attitude of mind to have ap- 
preciated them. It is the contrast of the brave man 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 105 

with the coward that sets the former in such high 
relief. 

In like manner if a man reflects upon himself, his 
self-approbation begins at least by some comparison with 
others. He contrasts himself favourably with others, 
and has a sentiment of elation or self-admiration. But 
our self-esteem finds its great support and corrobora- 
tion in the esteem of others. 

The known affections of others towards ourselves 
affect us, I presume, in the first instance, as leading us 
to anticipate benefit or injury from those who entertain 
such affections for us. But the knowledge that another 
loves or approves me does not end with exciting agree- 
able feelings. It has the other result of exalting my 
self-complacency, my vanity or pride. My sense of 
merit would be very feeble if the comparison I make 
between myself and others I did not believe to be also 
made by many of my fellow-men. 

I must be permitted to repeat here the observation 
I have already made. What we call secondary passions 
may be secondary only in the order of time. I cannot 
test or predict the strength of any passion by measuring 
the force of antecedent feelings which were' the condition 
of its development. I can only note and record subse- 
quent developments — their kind and degree. The 
knowledge that I am superior to another man, or am 
thought superior, breeds a well-known sentiment, that 
bears (according to the sort of superiority conceived) 
various names, as vanity and self-complacency, pride or 
self-esteem. But the strength of my vanity and self- 
esteem could not be measured by antecedent feelings, 
which might nevertheless be a condition of them. 



106 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

What we call the secondary passion grows, and develops, 
and modifies with the advancing intellect : feeling and 
knowledge expanding or varying together. This self- 
esteem becomes one of the most effective passions of 
mankind. It enters into our loftiest and meanest of 
moods; modifies with our loftiest or most petty purposes. 
The patriot feels it ; the man devoted to his art or the 
discovery of truth feels it ; the vain man displays it in 
its ridiculous aspect. Attached to one character^ to such 
qualities which are or should be in some degree common 
to all members of a human society, it is that sentiment 
of sell-approbation to which the moralist appeals, and 
which he does all in his power to foster and educate. 

The sentiment of Moral "Responsibility, about which 
there are so many debates, is a Thought and a Feeling. 
Try to separate the feeling, and we should have (at 
least in its simplest stage) some passion of fear, weak 
or strong as the case might be, but not in itself distin- 
guishable from other fears. As reflection advances 
upon the relationship between the individual and 
society, the state of mind designated as that of Moral 
Eesponsibility advances or undergoes a change. I 
would observe that in what we call the sentiment of 
Duty, and honour so highly under that name, it is not 
the feeling ]per se that is so highly honourable to human 
nature : it is the intellectual development that elevates 
the feeling, and renders the whole state of mind we de- 
scribe as sentiment of Duty so worthy of being extolled. 
Eespect for the sentiment and its union with theology 
have induced many writers to invest it with peculiar 
mystery, but in a psychological point of view I see not 
why it should be more mysterious than other sentiments 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 107 

— say than the sentiment of ambition. In both cases 
we see certain recognised passions or desires assuming 
an elevation by the importance to the whole society of 
the thoughts and purposes of which they form a part. 
Moral Responsibility in a child or savage is a very com- 
monplace fear — ''ear of some chastisement, for breaking 
a law trivial in itself, and trivially apprehended. After- 
wards there is fear of another kind, fear to lose the 
esteem of others or our own self-esteem, and a law of 
higher kind or more nobly apprehended. 

Nothing has created more confusion than the ten- 
dency men have to take what is most exalted, or what 
is actually most authoritative in the human mind, as 
first in order as well as in importance ; beginning in 
their history of the consciousness with the develop- 
ment which has latest risen to the place of supremacy. 
Many of our ethical perplexities are due to this inver- 
sion. What strange rhapsodies one sometimes hears 
about the sentiment of Justice or the sense of Desert ! 
Some Minerva is born armed and in divine panoply 
from the brain of each of us. To the passionate man, 
the fellow-man who has injured him deserves — ^just all 
the vengeance he can inflict. That is what he would 
call the satisfaction of justice. It is the satisfaction of 
his revenge.' Whether one man or twenty men give 
themselves this satisfaction, it is simply revenge. But 
to bystanders there are injuries of various degrees, and 
revenges of various kinds, and some measure or pro- 
portion between the injury and revenge grows up in 
the popular mind, and that shall be what the wrong- 
doer deserves. In the mind of the cultivated jurist 
the sentiment of Justice is still further modified. When 



108 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

the society deliberately makes laws for tlie future conduct 
of its members, and fixes a penalty to the violation of 
them, the expectation arises that men will be governed 
by these laws, and that the threat of the penalty will 
be sufficient. At all events the proclaimed laws and 
the threat are in the first instance to be set before 
them. The punishment must be inflicted when the 
law is broken, else the threat would become a nullity. 
But the use of the punishment is to preserve the effi- 
cacy of the threat. Hence to the enlightened jurist 
an ex jpost facto becomes unjust. The proportion of the 
punishment to the crime ceases to satisfy him. The 
law has become to him the great and important fact. 
Have you tried to govern the man by due proclamation 
of the law with its penalty 1 If not, you may inflict 
revenge, you do not execute justice. 

How manifest is it that the expansion of the intelli- 
gence of man has given rise to a new sentiment of 
justice. Instead of seeing everywhere intuitive senti- 
ments of morality, I find my hope and encouragement, 
my good augury for society, in this great fact, that 
with increasing knowledge and wider thinking higher 
sentiments grow up. Thinking glows into passion. 
Note, as the forms of government change with the 
circumstances and intelligence of men, how the senti- 
ments change also. The staunch est republican on 
earth must be utterly destitute of the spirit of philo- 
sophy if he has never noted with admiration how the 
sentiment of loyalty grows up in the monarchy — en- 
nobling what to him may have seemed a sad necessity. 
I do not venture to prophesy the future of human 
society, but when some scheme is proposed of organizing 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 109 

industry more directly for tlie benefit [of the working 
classes], and the objection is made that this supposes a 
new and more persistent sentiment of patriotism than 
the world has yet seen — ^the objection does not appear 
to me fatal. New social sentiments do arise with new 
thinking on social matters. It is the new thinking 
glowing into feeliiig. Half habit, half reflection, the 
new sentiment takes its place and does its work. 
What one notes at present is that the Thinking is so 
desperately imperfect — so fatally one-sided. One hears 
men shouting for their social and democratic government 
who have but one idea — that they, the shouters, are 
somehow to share more largely in the fruits of in- 
dustry. We find the most ignorant and craving of 
mankind shouting for that which requires a lofty in- 
telligence to comprehend, and the corresponding eleva- 
tion of feeling to assist in bringing into practice. 

III. 

The seutiment of Duty leads us, we are accustomed 
to say, to the virtuous action ; the sentiment of Merit 
is the reward for having performed it. What exactly 
are the conditions of this sense of merit '? An old 
controversy, which will return upon us again and again, 
here intrudes itself. To feel that an action was meri- 
torious, is not one condition this — that I recognise that 
I might or might not have performed it — that I per- 
formed it of my own free will 1 In an analysis of this 
sentiment I must glance again at this formidable con- 
troversy. All is not repetition that at first seems so. 
And there are subjects best treated by approaching 
them at intervals from slightly different points of view. 



no KNOWING AND FEELING : 

A persistent exhaustive method might only weary the 
attention. 

Merit of a moral kind attaches indisputably to the 
purpose, the intention. Indeed, that can only be pro- 
perly called a human acuion which was purposed, 
which flowed from a human consciousness. Any other 
action would be merely automatic. Perhaps a bygone 
purpose or purposes may have induced habits of such 
strength that little more may be observable in a given 
present action than the force of habit. But in such 
cases we tacitly refer the habit to such bygone pur- 
poses, and so bring it within the circle of our praise 
and blame. 

Put the case that you have unintentionally been the 
instrument of procuring some benefit for another — you 
have no sense of merit in such an act — you repel the 
praise or the proffered gratitude. If you were weak 
enough to accept them, you would feel that you were 
practising a deceit, or tacitly confirming his deception. 
Or put the case, far more likely to occur, that you have 
unintentionally injured your neighbour, you acquit 
yourself of all blame — you have no sense of demerit. 
The act was not yours — you did not purpose it. 

But certain moralists are not contented with this 
account of the matter. The act must not only be 
yours, but you must feel that you could have refrained 
from it if you pleased — that it was your free act. 
They admit that all the merit lies in the intention, but 
they see in the intention itself what they call a freedom ; 
the essence of the will lies in the intention, and in the 
intention there is this freedom ; and this sense of free- 
dom is a condition of your sense of merit. 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. Ill 

Now it is not a mere verbal dispute when I maintain 
that this choice, this sense of freedom to do this or that, 
lies in the very intellectual element of the conscious- 
ness. It is judgment, it is comparison, seen in the 
selection of our purpose. To give it this new name of 
will, is to give the name of a whole to a part. Will is 
properly the purpose and the action. As the purpose 
is so essential a part it draws the name to itself. But 
a purpose in itself is a combination of thought and 
feeling, or if we deliberate what shall be our purpose, 
this deliberation is itself a thought, or perhaps many 
thoughts, a series of comparisons and judgments. 

I praise the act of an intelligent human being. If 
the act had not its origin in intelligence of some kind 
and degree, it is not a human act at all — I withdraw 
my praise. In this intelligence lies the choice, the 
freedom of which you are conscious. He does not will 
his intelligence — but his intelligence is that part of his 
will which constitutes it a human will. So much of 
clear vision as you have on the right hand and the left, 
so much of freedom have you. 

" Very true," answers some controversialist ; " it 
would be only a change of terms if I spoke of the 
freedom of the intelligence, instead of the freedom of 
the will — if it were not that you, like other psycholo- 
gists, (trace a certain development, according to law, 
of the human intelligence, which you also combine 
with the element of feeling, and that at all events 
makes its first appearance without any choice of ours. 
I want in the freedom of will that which carries a 
human soul out of and above the laws of nature. I 
don't find this arbitrariness in the intellect." 



112 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

And I reply, with utmost candour, that such arbi- 
trariness I cannot find in man, under any terms what- 
soever. The choice that he has, which I say is his 
freedom and his intellect also, is a choice which repre- 
sents the man's position at the moment. But the 
nature, the terms of that choice, these have come down 
to him from the past. Yes, I choose, I intellectually 
energize thus. But there are many kinds of choice. I 
may ask, What is wisest ? What is best for me and for 
all % I may ask. What will yield me here and now the 
greatest pleasure % I may ask how best to obey a law, 
or merely how to escape from the penalty of its infrac- 
tion 1 This must surely depend on the growth and 
cultivation of my mind during the past. I cannot 
suddenly rise to the elevation of the moralist, who 
desires so to live that in providing for his own happi- 
ness he promotes the happiness of others, or at all 
events does nothing prejudicial to the well-being of 
society. I know of no arbitrary power by which a 
man can suddenly rise to this elevation. He rose to 
it through much thinking, and thinking under many 
social influences. 

When I deliberate, I feel that I can choose this or 
that. Such is the nature of deliberation. But the 
this or that? I did not conjure them up before my 
intellectual vision for the first time, and for or by this 
act of deliberation. 

There is all along this intellectual energy of choice. 
We are conscious of it ourselves, and we do our utmost 
to keep it alive in others. On this efficacy of our 
praise and blame rests the moral duty of a right distri- 
bution of praise and blame. In this efficacy of our 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 113 

punishments rests the justification of punishment itself, 
whenever we want any other justification than the 
passions of revenge and fear immediately supply. 

But if this be so, the question recurs, How is it there 
is such a reluctance to admit so plain a statement? 
There must be something unexplained. Gravest autho- 
rities, and those who pass for profoundest moralists, 
repeatedly demand for man an arbitrariness that places 
him outside of the laws of nature, will not admit that 
his Choice itself is an intellectual act quite in accord- 
ance with a development according to law. It is not 
enough that he has this intellectual energy, which 
grows under social promptings and social restraints. 
It seems to me that I could not strike the man unless 
I knew him as the author of his own intellect and 
affection. 

I have two observations to make here : To the 
unreflective or unscientific mind there is a certain delu- 
sion about this act of Choice. The judgment is abs- 
tracted from the terms. That concatenation of events 
and of our own cogitations and feelings, which has 
brought us to the present deliberation with such might 
and energy as we possess, is not present to us. Nothing 
perhaps is present but the act of judgment we have 
to perform, and it takes upon itself this arbitrary 
character. 

But reflection exposes this delusion ; why is it that 
we resist the correction 1 I apprehend that we should 
not be so willing to do so, if this first impression had 
not been incorporated with Theology, and with the 
punishments which Theology holds out. 

We may be sure that no especial theory of punish- 



114 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

.ment was invented for theology. But theology is 
remarkably conservative ; it changes, but it changes 
slowly ; it carries into our age the teaching that origi- 
nated probably in what was peculiar to a previous 
age. 

Justice as administered by human tribunals is even 
now some mixture of vindictiveness and expediency. 
In ruder times the vindictiveness, under the name of 
retribution, was a very predominant element. And it 
becomes such in the punishments dealt out by Zeus, or 
whatever was the presiding deity. 

When these punishments were transferred to another 
world — where they are now continued beyond the 
existence of human societies, and eternized there — it 
was too late to represent them as expedients for the 
improvement and advance of human society, or of 
any societies known to us. The punishment therefore 
stood forth in its retributive character, could justify 
itself in no other way. 

The theological thinker had no other resource than 
to exaggerate the guilt of the culprit, and if possible to 
modify the nature of that guilt to suit the new expan- 
sion of criminal justice. 

He fixed on this element of Choice. The man chose 
the crime, and in choosing the crime chose the punish- 
ment — dared or defied it. 

The guilt itself was converted into the violation of a 
law — a God's law. And here again a certain natural 
tendency of thought was taken advantage of without 
applying the needful corrections. Obedience to the 
rules of morality, from its extreme importance, was and 
is very generally taken for morality itself. The essence 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 115 

I of morality lies in the " Love thy neighbour." " Be 
a source of happiness to others as well as to yourself." 
The rules of morality are the modes in which this 
" Love thy neighbour " can best be carried into effect. 
Such precepts however as, " Speak the truth," " Do not 
steal," and the like, become taught (and not unwisely) 
as absolute first precepts, and virtue is defined as acting 
in obedience to such precepts. 

Matters stand thus : — There is a law. That law has 
been infringed, and a punishment quite irrespective 
of the wants or demands of the human society must 
follow. First, Virtue has become obedience to a law, 
then punishment follows on an infraction of the law. 
Abstractions are put in the place of human beings. 
The Calvinist rides off on these two abstractions ; they 
are enough for him. But most men, seeing there is a 
punishment falls on the individual soul — as he stands 
there face to face with God (not as he is one of a 
social community with and for whom he must needs 
suffer and enjoy) — find themselves obliged to aggravate 
the criminality of the human being's choice. They say, 
Here was a free-will ; the man could have obeyed — did 
not obey — therefore whose fault but his own ? And 
from this positive ground they feel that they must not 
retreat. 

In morality men have to judge each other. "What is 
loveable and serviceable they praise. What is hateful 
and injurious they condemn. That follows inevitably 
from their own nature. Moreover, they soon learn that 
their praise and blame, their reward and punishment, 
ever fosters the loveable and represses the hateful. 
We are all judges, and all judged, and under the in- 



116 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

fluence of an opinion that all contribute to, and that all 
are ruled by, the whole society grows ; and if it does 
not advance, yet preserves what degree of excellence 
has been reached. If the individual, brought to the 
bar of this public opinion, should appeal against its 
judgment, on the ground that he — the hapless indi- 
vidual developed according to law — that he thought, 
judged, selected with such poor intelligence as had 
been accorded to him — that he was weak in knowledge 
and judgment, strong in passion or desire — the answer 
is at hand : he would be still weaker, and more incur- 
able, if his fellow-men, with praise where they could 
give it, with blame where he went wrong, did not re- 
strain and guide him. The love and hate of others was 
his strength, gave him shame and honour. Amongst 
the laws of his being to which he appeals is this — that 
he 1? a social creature — can develop only under the 
affections and judgments of his kind. He makes his 
appeal to law, and from the law he is answered. 
Society has just this solidarity. 

In theology it is no longer society that judges, nor 
is the social man condemned, that either he or society 
may be the better for the judgment. It is an indi- 
vidual soul abstracted from the society that is put 
before the tribunal of God, his sin is to his Creator ; 
and now if he tenders the plea, " I was made thus," 
what answer can be given to the plea ? If listened to, 
it would stop the judgment ; it cannot be listened to. 
The individual must be decreed to have been at all 
times able to act better than he did act, or the sentence 
is supposed to fail in justification. 

It is thus, I apprehend, that our doctrine of free-wiU, 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 117 

as we meet with it constantly sustained, is made to 
hold its ground. I am speaking, be it understood, of 
the doctrine of divine punishment as generally taught. 
There are not wanting symptoms of some change — 
tardy and reluctant — in theology. The jurist has long 
had one theory of punishment, the theologian another. 
This divergence cannot last for ever. 

Would it not be wise to understand that the Creator 
punishes man through man and for the good of man ? 
I think I see the curtain descending altogether on that 
terrible vista of the future, lit up with what already seem 
unholy fires. Not the torture of the individual soul — 
not vengeance in any shape — but the onward progress 
of a whole spiritual community ; — this men begin to 
hold to be the divine purpose. 

Choose well! That is the act ever before us, the 
last result to which we are pressing. Ill choices have 
been made, to the misery of the chooser and others. 
Press on, and choose better, and ever better. 

Nor can any doctrine of law or necessity, whether 
we call it the nature of things or the ordinance of God, 
rationally intervene to quell the efforts or extinguish 
the purposes of man. He does think, purpose, choose, 
— this is his nature, though he thinks, purposes, and 
chooses at each moment on some condition of the past ; 
he does this by an energy no one could positively pre- 
dict, for the intellect of the man is the last appearance 
in the world, a faculty that has come in — that joins 
itself to the rest, is conditioned by the rest — but none 
but God knows what possible strength it may manifest. 
Fatalism, or a necessity known to us, there is not; 
there is a faculty of intelligence acting on conditions. 



118 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

and as that faculty acts or not, will be results. But no 
science has limited the energy of this faculty. 

Mr. Palgrave, when on a voyage with Mahometans, 
writes of them thus : " The Mahometans seemed 
thoroughly convinced that they were in the hands 
of an Absolute and Arbitrary Power, which might 
save them if it chose, or drown them if it chose, but 
on which their prayers or needs would have little or 
no effect." 

. Their prayers, probably not; but what of their 
efforts to save the ship ] If the fatalism of the 
Mahometan went so far as this, that the result would 
be the same whatever the skill and labour of navi- 
gation, we are justified in calling such fatalism an 
absurdity. The efforts and activities of men (when we 
are considering human nature) are precisely the things 
determined by God. A creature stands before us who 
works thus, energizes thus ; works on with sense of his 
own individuality; has this energy of intellect and 
choice, and must manifest it as long as he has conscious 
life. 

If the advocates of free-will only demand the acknow- 
ledgm_ent of an intellectual energy which none of us can 
sound or fathom, and which is the last gift from the 
hands of God, I for one have no controversy with them ; 
that such energy must at each stage receive the con- 
dition, the terms on which it works, is also a truth 
which they perhaps, on their side, would feel bound to 
acknowledge. 

IV. 

There is yet a topic which cannot be omitted, — the 
influence of passion on belief. It seems to me that a 



A CONTEIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 119 

clear understanding of the great psychical qualities 
which constitute a human consciousness enables us to 
thread our way through those difficulties that surround 
the nature of Belief. 

We cannot, as I often have to repeat, transcend our 
Intelligence and our Feelings. All thinking is origin- 
ally belief; all object of thought is originally truth. 
There comes in a distinction between these objects and 
these thoughts. Our memory, even our senses, are 
found occasionally deceptive. When we have to antici- 
pate the future, we make many an egregious mistake. 
The distinction between truth and falsehood enters, and 
enters to grow more and more important. 

That which is distinguished as false should be, as 
such, banished from the mind ; its distinction as false 
should be a pure exercise of judgment. But the judg- 
ment does not always give a clear decision, and mean- 
while the passionate or emotional nature of a thought 
gives it standing-place. By reason of its emotion, it 
becomes the exciter of kindred or sustaining thoughts. 
Thus belief — which must always be the reception or 
no-reception of an idea according to this distinction 
of true or false — is no longer governed by the judgment 
only. The affections throw their weight into the 
scale. 

Hence there grows up a second distinction between 
Belief and a conviction of the reason. Absolute truth 
knows of no degrees. Even a probability, if it can be 
mathematically calculated, takes the form of an absolute 
truth. But anticipations which are hopes and fears as 
well as judgments, are strong or feeble, admit — and 
Belief here admits — of degree, as strong or weak — be- 



120 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

cause the passion that fastens them on us, that will not 
let them be dismissed, may be strong or weak. 

Belief, when it is distinguished from pure intellectual 
assent, as when we distinguish Faith from Eeason, 
marks a predominant presence of feeling or desire. 

I shall perhaps be reminded here that there is an 
assent that comes from merely repeating what others 
have told us. A habit of this kind is conspicuous 
enough. But the habit acts so as to favour some 
judgment already made. Mere repetition of itself would 
not be a belief — it would not involve that distinction 
between true and false, probable or improbable, which 
lies at the basis of belief. If / believe, because another 
has told me, it is because I have more confidence in 
that person than in another person telling me the con- 
trary, and on a belief thus founded habit may operate, 
which indeed operates on all things.. 

The influence of passion on belief is seen everywhere. 
It makes one thought a greater favourite than another 
thought, or fastens it there by the very emotion, though 
it may be painful and fearful. Then, when the question 
is asked, Is it true or not^ are there not certain 
known truths, truths perhaps of the senses which con- 
tradict this thought, and forbid it to enter as a truth 1 
— this overpowering influence of the emotion renders a 
calm judgment impossible. We say the voice of reason 
is stifled — is too weak to be heard. 

If our estimate of another's character has gathered 
around it our love or hate, how hard it is for us to 
revise our judgment, and admit evidence that contradicts 
this estimate ! If a future event, highly improbable, 
has, however, once excited a keen hope within us, how 



A CONTPJBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. 121 

reluctantly do we listen to any exposition of that im- 
probability ! We say the man has a strong belief, and 
very weak judgment. 

But it must not be forgotten that truth and proba- 
bility may also receive their support in our mind from 
the emotion they carry with them. And a passionate 
belief may be a true belief. In such cases a theologian 
would say — presuming his doctrines were the subject 
of discussion — that the man had both Reason and Faith. 

And nowhere are the feelings observed more con- 
spicuously than in our religious beliefs. It is Imagina- 
tion that first leads us out of the circle of terrestrial 
objects, and the imagination would probably come and 
go, like a passing dream, if it did not awake some feel- 
ing of love and hate, of hope or fear. He who first 
whispered that there is a Father in the skies (and 
philologists trace back the conception to a very remote 
antiquity) was founding a new sentiment and new hope 
— a reverence due elsewhere, a protection to be looked 
for elsewhere. The feelings of a child to a parent 
found new scope : the adult was again a child, and 
had a Celestial Protector. He who first suggested that 
there might be in the skies, for the whole society, a 
Ruler and Avenger of crime, was founding a new 
Government for mankind. Here was a Judge not to 
be deceived, perhaps a Leader in battle not to be re- 
sisted. From time to time voices of dissent will arise 
— sceptical questionings — but the main result of these 
will be to give to such Imaginations the distinctive 
character of Beliefs. We thought them — possibly with 
the same spontaneity with which we saw this and that; 
your suggestion that they may be falsities only makes 



122 KNOWING AND FEELING : 

US think them again, under the distinction of true and 
false, and declare that they are not falsities. 

If to imagination succeeds some idea of the reason, 
or if the imagination itself is partly justified and partly 
modified by subsequent knowledge and reflection — it is 
still some passion or emotion which gives to assent that 
energy which exalts it to a Faith. Why should a thought 
recur again and again, or how could it influence our 
lives, if it were not a passion as well as a thought — if 
it had no bearing on human felicity ? A truth to which 
we are entirely indifferent falls from us as an idle pro- 
position. At least there is the passion of discovery, 
and the passion of dispute, or intellectual energy would 
flag. 

Those who write the history of religion are constantly 
portraying to us the result of emotion in the belief 
and practices of the various nations of the earth, and 
they show how emotion acts upon thought, and thought 
again upon emotion. What was the first worship, when 
men went shouting through the woods, or clanging 
their cymbals underneath the impassive sky, but some 
sentiment of wonder in the presence of earth and 
heaven that they did not know how better to express 1 

But the vague sentiment of wonder, which probably 
came first and certainly lasts the longest, must soon 
have been followed by other sentiments. What a 
yearning we have to know the future ! Was there 
nothing in heaven or earth that could tell usi was 
there no way of extorting the knowledge? So the 
oracle grew up, and the oracle was believed in, not 
because men had really tested the veracity of oracles, 
but because they evidently desired that there should be 



A CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY, 123 

oracles. It would have been a kind of profanity to 
make a statistical list of predictions that were true and 
predictions that were falsified, with a third column 
from those uttered in such ambiguities of language, 
that whether they were really verified or falsified it was 
impossible to say. 

But the god can do more than reveal; he can give 
the victory. Or he can bring defeat and pestilence on 
the land. Fear is even more potent than hope in this 
matter of belief To deny the god might anger him — 
supposing our denial a mistake, and he really existed all 
the while. Supposing there were nine hundred and 
ninety-nine chances in favour of the non-existence, and 
one only in the thousand in favour of the existence of 
some terrible demon — yet so long as there is room for 
a mistake, my tongue is paralysed, I tremble and 
believe. 

We have noticed how passion grows in strength 
when shared by a crowd; and the passion-supported 
belief augments in the same proportion. We need not 
transcend the dusty arena of politics for an example of 
this. A national hatred brings with it national beliefs 
that are perfectly astounding to the cool-headed spec- 
tators. The violent patriot cannot recognise any good- 
ness in the adversary of his country ; to do so would be 
to cease to hate, or to cease to hate with due patriotic 
virulence. Our neighbours the Irish, or I should rather 
say one class of Irishmen, hate England, hate the 
English rule, hate every statesman that would uphold 
it. He may labour most strenuously for the good of 
Ireland, strive in every way to be just and beneficent — 
it avails nothing ; he is hated, and therefore his justice 



124 KNOWING AND FEELING. 

is a disguised fear, and his benevolence a mere treachery. 
There is no help for it. 

It is well known that on religious subjects a specific 
argument has been deduced for the truth of a proposi- 
tion from the excellent results of believing it true, or 
from the desirableness that it should be true. It is so 
desirable to be immortal, why not therefore "? It is so 
desirable, so many have thought, that there should be a 
Judge to mete out rewards and punishments according 
to the merits and demerits of men — and what is seen to 
be so wise, must it not be ? This kind of argument 
may have its place. Having established the existence 
of a Benevolent and Omnipotent Creator, we may adopt, 
of two suppositions equally open to us, that one which 
is in accordance with such established belief But in 
general we must remember that we come to the uni- 
verse to learn what is ; what we should think wisest is 
hardly a rule for the universe. 

But whatever logicians may determine about the 
argument, the desire for immortality is indisputably 
the great foundation for a belief in it. Awake that 
desire and cultivate yourself for a specific form of im- 
mortal happiness, and the faith is secure. And men 
more especially distinguish this as a faith. They do 
not say that it is against Eeason : far from it ; but they 
are conscious that it is mainly upheld by Feeling. 

Having thus seen the elasticity and growth of human 
passion — following, in short, human knowledge and 
change of outward circumstances — we are somewhat 
better prepared to enter on a survey of the past with 
some hope of dimly foreseeing the future. 



MEMOIR. 



" It is quite in vain that critics and readers both 
constantly repeat that the biography of a man of letters 
is almost always unentertaining, and that we could 
hardly expect it to be otherwise. Whatever it is we 
expect, or have any just reason for expecting, there is 
an incurable curiosity to know something of the man 
wherever the writer has succeeded in interesting us. 
The case stands thus : we have a living human being 
revealing himself to us by his thoughts, and by nothing 
else. Something to fill up the blank we inevitably 
crave. We have here an object of esteem, perhaps of 
some degree of veneration, and yet our hero remains 
obstinately invisible ; even to the mind's eye utterly 
obscure. We desire that he take human form, and be 
seen moving amongst the realities of life ; we desire 
that he stand out before us somewhat distinctly in the 
imagination. 

" Other great men, the man of action, the great 
captain, the great statesman, write their lives in their 
deeds ; the very career which ennobles or distinguishes 
them is also their biography. We see them in their 



128 

actions. Their lives, too, are written in the history of 
their country, and they hardly need a separate memo- 
rial. With the mail of letters it is otherwise. He has 
written a book, and placed it there on the desk before 
us. The hand that placed it there is unseen. Unless 
some friend will tell us, we can know nothing of the 
destiny of this man. He comes before us as the 
thinker only : he had these thoughts, but where 1 
under what circumstances ? He also lived, enjoyed, 
or suffered. It may be a commonplace story, but in 
this instance we must have the commonplace." 

These are Avords of your own, my beloved ; and I 
appeal to their sanction as I prepare to write out my 
glimpses of your early life, my memories of the later 
years during which it was intertwined with mine. I 
am not writing for the public — a task you held un- 
suited to a wife, requiring a more impartial judgment 
than her love and sorrow could exercise. I only try to 
write for the inner circle of friends who desire to know 
how you came to be what you were, and to hold the 
opinions you held. I cannot, indeed, tell them much, 
yet there is no other who can tell them so much. For 
you used to say that you had let me look you through 
and through j and whenever you adverted, ever so 
lightly, to your past, I gathered up your words and 
stored them in my heart. L. C. S. 



MEMOIR. 

That must have been a happy home at North- End, 
Hammersmith, into which, during the January of 
1808, William Henry Smith was born, the youngest 
of a large family. His father, a man of strong natural 
intelligence, having early made a fortune sufficient for 
his wants, early retired from business, in consequence 
mainly of an asthniatic tendency, which had harassed 
him from the age of thirty. The impression I 
gained of him from his son's description was that of 
one peculiarly fond of quiet and of books, but whose 
will gave law to his household, and was uniformly 
seconded by the loving loyalty of his wife. The large 
family had a recognised Head, a condition I have often 
heard my husband insist upon as essential to all healthy 
domestic life. Whatever the spirits of the children 
might prompt, it was an understood, a felt law, that 
"Papa's" tastes and habits must be respected. And 
these, being interpreted by so gentle a mother, were 
never viewed in the light of unreasonable restraints. 
This dear mother seems to have been a woman of a 
quite primitive type, full of silent piety, wrapped up in 
the home and the family. She was of partly German 
extraction, her mother had been an eminently saintly 

I 



130 MEMOIR. 

character, and I have caught glimpses too of a grand- 
father devoted to the study of Jacob Boehme, whose 
folio volumes, and the tradition of the veneration in 
which they had been held, still existed in the Hammer- 
smith home. 

How often, by the divination of love and sorrow, 
I have tried to conjure up that home before my mind ! 
My husband once took me to its site, but the good old 
house had been cut up into shops, and the large garden 
was all gone, — the large garden, that had seemed so 
large to the happy child playing there by the hour 
" under the scarlet and purple blossoms of the fuchsias," 
under the benignant eye too of a well-remembered old 
servant, gardener and groom, who kept the plants and 
the sleek discreet horse " Papa " drove in his gig, in 
equal order. It was an every-day delight to play in 
that garden, a high privilege to ride in that gig. I 
think I can see the father, very tall, a little worn by 
asthma, with black eyes of peculiar, piercing power, 
and a certain stateliness and natural dignity which 
were wont to receive from officials at public places a 
degree of deference, noticed with some amusement by 
the little observant companion and sight-seer. What 
he must have been at an early age the miniature 
photographed on the first page will best show. No 
wonder that, as his eldest surviving sister affectionately 
recalls, " he was the pet of both parents," though his 
exceeding mobility did sometimes a little agitate the 
valetudinarian father, who would lay down a half-crown 
on the table and say, " William, you shall have it, if 
you will only sit still for ten minutes ! " A child with 
such an expression as the picture shows would surely 



MEMOIR. 131 

have complied had it been any way possible ; but he 
did not remember that the half-crown was ever won. 
One day, when he was very small, a canary bird be- 
longing to a sister died, and was buried beneath a 
flower-bush in the garden ; and on that occasion, when 
the bright and restless creature lying suddenly motion- 
less on the palm of some young hand had given the 
happy child his first experience of wondering sadness, 
he wrote his first verses. There is no one but me who 
recalls the trifling incident, — me, to whom nothing that 
ever befell him can be a trifle ! I always felt a sacred 
interest in hearing him spontaneously revert to this 
joyous period. It was not very often that he did so ; to 
speak of himself at all was unusual with him; but in 
his writings one not unfrequently comes upon passages 
akin in spirit to the one I am about to transcribe from 
a review of Jean Paul, which he wrote in the summer 
of 1863:— 

"All men delight, as Richter himself observes, in 
far-reaching recollections of their days of childhood. 
He proceeds to assign two reasons for this : ' That in 
this retrospect they press closer to the gate of life, 
guarded by spiritual existences ; ' and secondly, ' That 
they hope in the spiritual fervour of an earlier con- 
sciousness to make themselves independent of the little 
contemptible annoyances that surround humanity.' This 
is going very far for a reason ; a better might be found 
nearer hom.e, in the simple pleasure of the tender and 
other emotions that we feel at the revived image of 
our miniature self. Mr. Bain, in his late admirable 
treatise on the Emotions, has described a form of our 
passions which he calls self-pity, a tender yearning over 



132 MEMOIR. 

one's-self — the same kind of pathetic sentiment which 
we feel for another, and which, indeed, is first elicited 
by some other person, and afterwards indulged in 
towards ourself; We look upon ourself as worthy of 
commiseration, or else of congratulation. We sympa- 
thize, in fact, with that self which is thrown before us 
as an object of contemplation. In no case is this 
species of sentiment so distinctly felt as when we 
conjure up the self of childhood. We weep — not its 
tears again, but tenderly over the little sorrows that 
brought them ; we laugh — not again the laughter 
of childhood, but we laugh over its laughter, till the 
eyes fill again with other tears. The image that rises 
up in the memory, though recognised as ourself, is yet 
so difi'erent from this present recollecting and reflecting 
self, that we are capable of loving it, praising, chiding, 
laughing over it, with the same freedom as if it were 
some other person we were thinking of. We feel a 
charming egotism when we record the feats of child- 
hood ; we sympathize with the boastfulness of the little 
boaster ; the vanity is not our own. We feel no shame 
at reviving its sallies of passion ; we, the mature judge, 
pardon the little ignorant culprit. Whatever feelings 
in the course of our life have been elicited towards 
children, centre upon this child, which also was ourself 
We travel hand in hand with it, like the guardian angel 
in the picture-books, looking down with grave, sweet, 
half-puzzled smile ; only, in the picture-books, the 
angel guides the child, and here the child is leading 
the graver angel where it lists, stooping now for a 
flower, or striking out hopelessly after the too swift 
and vagrant butterflies." 



MEMOIR. 133 

Here is another glimpse of the enjoyments of those 
early days. The cheerful drawing-room in the Ham- 
mersmith home had a window at both ends. Round 
the one that looked into the garden clustered the white 
blossoms or hung the luscious fruit of a surpassing 
pear-tree — a swan- egg — the like of which was never 
met in later years ! From the other window the 
children could watch the following spectacle, which my 
husband evidently enjoyed recalling in a notice of Mr. 
Knight's Reminiscences, published in 1864 : — 

" Very pleasant is this looking back over a period of 
history through which we too have lived. Give a boy 
a telescope, and if he is far enough away from home, 
the first or the greatest delight he has in the use of it 
is to point it back to the house he lives in. To see the 
palings of his own garden, to see his father at work in 
it, or a younger brother playing in it, is a far gi-eater 
treat than if you were to show him the coast of France 
or any other distant object. And so it is with the 
past in time. If the telescope of the historian brings 
back to us events through which we have lived, and 
which were already fading away in the memory, he 
gives to us quite a peculiar pleasure. . . . 

" This great revolution in our mode of travelling, 
the substitution of the steam-engine for the horse, will 
soon be a matter of history, and older men will begin 
to record, with that peculiar zest which belongs to the 
recollection of youth, the aspect which the highway 
roads leading out of London presented in their time. 
The railway-train rushing by you at its full speed is 
sublime ! — it deserves no timid epithet. You stand 
perhaps in the country, on one of those little bridges 



134 MEMOIR. 

thrown over the line for the convenience of the farmer, 
who would else find his fields hopelessly bisected. A 
jet of steam is seen on the horizon, a whir of a thou- 
sand wheels grows louder and louder on the ear, — and 
there rushes under your feet the very realization of 
Milton's dream, who saw the chariot of God, instinct 
with motion, self-impelled, thundering over the plains 
of heaven. You look round, and already in the distant 
landscape the triumphal train is bearing its beautiful 
standard of ever-rising clouds, white as the highest 
that rest stationary in the sky, and of exquisitely in- 
volved movement. For an instant the whole country 
is animated as if by the stir of battle : when the spec- 
tacle has quite passed, how inexpressibly flat and deso- 
late and still have our familiar fields become! Nothing 
seems to have a right to exist that can be so still and 
stationary. Yet grand as this spectacle is, we revert 
with pleasure to some boyish recollections of the high- 
road, and to picturesque effects produced by quite 
other means. We are transported in imagination to 
a bay-window that commanded the great western road 
— the Bath Eoad, as people at that time often called it. 
Every evening came, in rapid succession, the earth 
tingling with the musical tread of their horses, seven mail- 
coaches out of London. The dark-red coach, the scarlet 
guard standing up in his solitary little dickey behind, 
the tramp of the horses, the ring of the horns — can one 
ever forget them 1 For some miles out of London the 
guard was kept on his feet, blowing on his horn, to 
warn all slower vehicles to make way for his Majesty's 
mails. There was a turnpike within sight of us ; how 
the horses dashed throuofh it ! with not the least abate- 



MEMOIE. 135 

ment of speed. If some intolerable blunderer stopped the 
way, and that royal coachman had to draw up his team, 
making the splinter-bars rattle together, we looked upon 
it as almost an act of high treason. If the owner of that 
blockading cart had been immediately led off to execu- 
tion, we boys should have thought he had but his 
deserts. Our mysterious seven were still more exciting 
to the imagination when, in the dark winter nights, only 
the two vivid lamps could be seen borne along by the 
trampling coursers. No darkness checked the speed of 
the mail ; a London fog, indeed, could not be so easily 
vanquished ; but even the London fog which brought 
all ordinary vehicles to a stand-still could not altogether 
subdue our royal mails. The procession came flaring 
with torches, men shouting before it, and a man with a 
huge link at the head of each horse. It was a thrilling 
and a somewhat fearful scene." 

The first sorrow that left a trace on my husband's 
remembrance was the going to school, at the age, I 
think, of eight or nine. He did not go far indeed, but 
to the sensitive and much-petted child, the change from 
the atmosphere of love and joy that filled his home was 
simply appalling. He was sent to a clergyman of the 
name of Elwal, and found himself surrounded by a 
good many older boys, who appeared to him — and 
probably were — boisterous and brutal. At all events 
the little fellow, to whom the Bible his mother so loved 
was the most sacred of all things, could not read it, 
could not kneel night and morning beside his little bed, 
without jeers and taunts and rough dissuasives. He 
only read and prayed the more resolutely. The un- 
flinching spirit that throughout life followed after 



136 MEMOIR. 

truth at any cost, was even then awake in the lonely 
and sorrowful child. Then, too, the comparatively 
coarse fare, the inevitable fat, for which he had a 
constitutional loathing, somewhat impaired his health. 
Yet he probably kept back — with the strange reticence 
that belongs to childhood — the full amount of his un- 
happiness, or he would never have been left at this 
school ; and no doubt, too, .school-life to one so quick 
to learn, so active in play, must also have had a plea- 
sant side. Still the memory of those days never failed 
to awake in him the pathetic yearning, the self-pity^ to 
which allusion has been made in a preceding extract. 
He was always sorry for the " miniature self " placed 
under Mr. Elwal's care. 

The next school to which he went was in every way 
a contrast. Mr. Elwal taught well, but disregarded — 
as was indeed almost universal at that time — the 
material comforts of his pupils. At Eadley, near 
Abingdon, the latter were well attended to, but the 
standard of learning was not high. But the two years 
or so spent there were always cheerfully adverted to. 
It might jar the High Church susceptibilities of the 
present inmates of Eadley Hall to know that early in 
the century it was a Dissenting school — the head- 
master a Dissenter, who seemed to have little vocation 
for his office beyond failure in some former business ! 
However, he had a fair staff of masters and an amiable, 
popular wife, who liked William Smith to drive with 
her in her little pony-carriage, which he appeared to 
have liked too. In fact, at Eadley — so far as I could 
discern — he did nothing but what he liked. A re- 
ligious profession was in the ascendant there, would 



MEMOIE. 137 

have insured approval ; one is not therefore surprised to 
find that the feeling of devotion, which opposition had 
only stimulated, now retired out of sight. He very- 
soon learnt all that the masters could teach him, was 
at the head of the school (a distinction which, he care- 
fully impressed upon me, implied but mediocre scholar- 
ship), and had his time almost entirely at his own dis- 
posal. Radley was then a noble but still unfinished 
house, standing in beautiful grounds. There was one 
room especially fine in its proportions, with rows of 
stately pillars, and looking into the park — a room 
originally destined for a library, but almost unfur- 
nished, and with a scanty choice of books — and this 
room was the boy's favourite and undisturbed resort. 
And among the few volumes it contained he found 
Byron ! And pacing up and down that pillared room, 
book in hand, the potent spell wrought in the young 
poetic heart, No sketch of his youth could be faithful 
that omitted this Byronic phase. He has often de- 
scribed its sufferings to me, but I prefer to give them 
in words of his own, written in 1864. Throughout 
the long series of his articles on various subjects I can 
trace occasional allusions to this morbid influence : — 

" The youth of the last age were battling blindly 
and passionately against fate, were full of gloomy 
mysteries, great devotees to beauty, which after all was 
but to them the rainbow in ' a storm which they 
thought might abate, but which never ceased, — rainbow 
always upon clouds which broke up only to re-unite 
in darker masses, — rainbow of beauty, not of hope, 
incongruous apparition in a troubled and chaotic 
world. 



138 MEMOIR. 

" Our Byronic fever had more than one phase ; 
sometimes it exhibited itself in a mere moody fantas- 
tical misanthropy, combined with a reckless pursuit of 
very vulgar pleasure ; but in a less numerous and 
more meditative order of minds it displayed itself in a 
morbid passionate discontent with themselves as with 
all others. These were not pleasure-seekers, they had 
a great scorn for human life." .... It is needless to 
point out to which of these two classes the writer 
could ever have belonged. 

But although the first reading of Byron's poetry 
dated as far back as the two years spent at Radley 
school, it was later that the Byronic spirit was fully 
developed. Certainly the germ must have lain dor- 
mant during the brief and happy period that the 
boy passed at Glasgow College (1821-22). He was 
young to go there — only fourteen ; but an elder brother 
— his favourite brother Theyre, a keen logician even 
then, and remarkable for worth and charm as well as 
intellect — was at that time a student at Glasgow, and 
it seemed desirable that William, who had evidently 
absorbed what of learning Eadley could afford, should 
share higher advantages under his brother's care. 

He always remembered this session at Glasgow with 
peculiar interest, and more than once described to me the 
passage from London to Leith, made in foggy weather 
(in a sailing vessel of course), the impressions received 
on landing, the introduction to Scotch coUops, and the 
ambrosial sweetness of the first glass of Edinburgh ale ! 
A clever student (now a bishop) shared the lodgings of 
the two brothers ; John Sterling was one of their inti- 
mate associates, and much eager conversing and debat- 



MEMOIR. 139 

ing went on, to which I cannot doubt that the boy 
contributed many an apposite illustration and subtle 
argument. His elder brother in one of his home letters 
writes : — "William and I have no 'ennui;' we are closely 
engaged, and when threatened with a lowness of spirits 
we can manage between us to conjure up some ludi- 
crous image, to make a joke out of something, and 
relieve ourselves with a feat of hilarity. It is no bad 
thing, T can assure you, to have brains enough even to 
play the fool." 

It was now that for the first time William Smith fell 
in with Scotch metaphysics, that — to use his own words 
in talking over the subject with me — " he got thinking." 
As a consequence, the old theological foundations be- 
came gradually disturbed, at first perhaps insensibly, 
for his supreme enjoyment was still found in hearing 
Dr. Chalmers preach. That fervent eloquence always 
remained one of his most vivid memories. At the 
time I write of, the three friends and fellow-students 
were all Dissenters, but my husband was the only one 
of them who throughout life not only firmly adhered 
in theory to the Voluntary system,^ but as a matter of 
taste preferred the simple Presbyterian service. The 
large family in the Hammersmith home were indeed in 

- Nevertheless I give a little anecdote which I owe to my husband's 
gifted brother-in-law, Mr, Weigall, to prove that long before the 
Glasgow days, at a very early age indeed, William Smith could look 
npon both sides of a question. ''His brother Theyre," writes Mr. 
Weigall, " always predicted to me his future distinction. I remember 
his mentioning as an evidence of his quickness that when he (Theyre) 
was driving him in a little pony-carriage of rather fragile-looking con- 
struction, kept chiefly for the use of his sisters, William said to him, 
' I don't like riding in this thing. I never feel secure. T always feel 
as if I were being supported by voluntary contributions.' " 



140 MEMOIR. 

the habit of attending the parish church once a day — 
the father had the old-fashioned Church-and-King rever- 
ence, — but it was in the Independent chapel that the 
younger members had their strongest emotions roused. 
It is easy to trace the influence of early associations in 
the passage I am about to extract from a notice of 
Sheridan Knowles, written by my husband in the 
summer of 1863 : — 

" If a French actor or Italian opera-singer retires 
from the stage to a convent of La Trappe, there to dig 
his own grave in silence and sechision, we hasten to 
throw around the incident a halo of poetry. If we do 
not altogether admire and applaud, we stand aside in 
submissive, respectful attitude ; we look in mute amaze- 
ment at this man who is so palpably forsaking earth 
for heaven. No poetry hovers over the Dissenting 
meeting-house. Neither the pew nor the pulpit of the 
Baptist chapel presents anything attractive to the 
imagination. Good Protestants as we are, we sympa- 
thize more readily with the Trappist than with the less 
ardent but surely more rational devotion that takes 
shelter in the walls of the little Bethel. Yet this 
should not be. In reality that little Bethel may be the 
scene of a pious enthusiasm as remarkable as any that 
demonstrates itself, under more poetic circumstances, 
in the convent of La Trappe. We have but to throw 
ourselves into the heart of the true worshipper, and 
the most unsightly edifice of brick and mortar that 
ever glared on us from the dusty street of a provincial 
town will become invested with a poetry of the highest 
order. See the well-regulated methodical tradesman 
enter such a building. Leaving the cares and gains of 



MEMOIR. 141 

the week behind him, he walks at the head of his 
family up the narrow passage, which we will not call 
the aisle ; he needs no verger to usher him into his 
seat ; his hand reaches over to the familiar button that 
fastens the door of his pew ; he opens the door, lets in 
wife and children, then establishes himself in his accus- 
tomed corner. He deals out from some secret deposi- 
tory — perhaps from a drawer under the seat — the 
Bibles and the Hymn-books, calf-bound, and the oldest 
of them not a little soiled and dog-eared. These he 
distributes, and then prepares for the morning devo- 
tion. One great sentiment he more or less distinctly 
recognises — the sentiment which, differently modified, 
constitutes the essence of religion in all churches and 
in all hearts, that he and his family are then and 
there doing homage to the Lord of all, are pledging 
themselves to obedience to whatever is just, and wise, 
and good, because His ways are perfect, and He requires 
of us. His rational creatures, what poor attempts at per- 
fection we can make. After some interval of silence, 
a man, in spotless black coat and white neckcloth, rises 
from the deal pulpit opposite, a square deal box, with 
a reading-desk to it, which desk has no other ornament 
or furniture than the one large book, on which the 
minister reverently lays his hand. That one book 
sanctifies the whole place. Take that away, and all 
is dirt and dinginess. But our man in the corner of 
his pew could tell you that from that central spot there 
has emanated, he knows not how, a subtle influence 
that has pervaded the whole building, so that its very 
plastered walls are sacred to him. There is a knot in 
the unpainted wood-work of his pew on which his eye 



142 MEMOIR. 

has often rested as he followed the worthy preacher. 
Were our man to travel, and to be absent in foreign 
kingdoms, that knot in a piece of soiled deal would 
rise before his imagination, and suggest holy memories 
to him. His hand would be again on the button of 
that pew, and he would prepare himself for solemn 
meditations. Oh, believe us, the poetry comes from 
within. A lady kneels upon her prie-dieu before an 
altar, covered with glittering candlesticks and flowers, 
and lights and tapestry — kneels there under the carved 
roof which echoes with marvellous music ; so let her 
kneel, if her heart worships better in that fashion ; but 
all the array of aesthetic symbolism will be unmeaning 
to her as the upholstery of her own drawing-room, 
unless she can bring to it that very poetry which our 
sober tradesman has contrived to throw over a wooden 
pew, polished only by his own elbows." 

To return to the youthful Glasgow student. Perhaps 
nothing can convey so accurate an idea of what he was 
at this early age as a letter written in most delicate 
and legible characters to one of his elder sisters. In it 
we already see something of that blending of thought 
and feeling, of self-control and reflectiveness with spon- 
taneity, which distinguished the man. It shows, too, 
how happy and loving was the home circle he was 
nurtured in, — a circle, I have heard him say, of which 
no member permitted him or her self an uncourteous 
tone or the disrespect of personal comment towards 
any other. There was a latent fire in the dark eyes of 
all, and a tacit conviction prevailed that such a liberty 
would be resented. I copy the letter verbatim. It 
was written in the summer of 1822 : — 



MEMOIR. 143 

" My dear Esther, — I surely need not tell you with how 
much pleasure Selina's letter was received. Need I say, I shall 
be glad to see you all. With how much pleasure I look forward 
to the happy time, how many fond anticipations, and how 
many expectations I indulge ! You have lately felt all these, 
and know them well ; but you cannot tell the change my mind 
has undergone before the arrival of that joy-bearing letter. I 
had been ' making up ' my mind to spend my summer at 
Glasgow, and perhaps part of that summer alone. I say 
'making up,' for it was a kind of process, and one rather 
tedious and difficult. For, as I told my dear mamma, the 
thought Avould often come with great force — 'how I should 
like to see them all ! ' Now this would greatly retard the pro- 
cess, and therefore I set strict watch over my thoughts ; and 
when they rambled to North End, I checked them, after a very 
short indulgence, for fear they should end in a desire to visit 
that happy corner. It has set all in a flame. Those smothered 
feelings burst forth — hope and expectation shine with double 
lustre — all is light and gladness. And shall I see you all so 
soon ? Yes, I shall, I shall ! 

" This is the first time I have stopped to take breath since I 
began this letter, for, whenever the subject of home comes 
across my mind, it imparts such an impulse that there is no re- 
sisting it. Perhaps it has carried me on with precipitation in this 
case. Sometimes it crosses my path while I am taking a walk, 
and then it is sure to make me take extraordinary long steps, 
or make fantastic leaps. In short, wherever it comes, it gives 
an irresistible stimulus, which no gravity can withstand and no 
will restrain. But gently ! gently, my pen ! 

" There is one little circumstance I cannot help mentioning. 
When Theyre had perused the letter, and knew how the con- 
tents would please me, he put on a grave look, and, with a 
solemn manner, read to me that part which contained the news. 
The contrast was very great, for, while he was standing in this 
solemn manner, I was laughing and wriggling about the 
chair, as though bewitched. — Well then, you may expect us the 
first week in August, at the latest ; and glad shall I be when 
that week comes, for I do so want to see you all. 



144 MEMOIR. 

" No doubt it will give you pleasure to hear that Theyre has 
carried ofif the first prize in the Logic class. There are in every 
class a certain number of prizes given, and they are distributed 
according to the votes of the students. Theyre obtained his 
unanimously. He also was successful in a prize essay. I must 
also tell you that the Greek Professor gave me one for two or 
three poetical translations I wrote. There is no little ceremony 
in distributing them, but I will not trouble you with that. 

"How many circumstances are there which are constantly 
directing our thoughts to that place where our affections are 
placed ! The most trifling thing will sometimes carry us away 
many miles, and detain us there for a long time. The other 
day, as I was demonstrating a proposition (for I am attending a 
little to mathematics), I happened to put the lid of the case of 
instruments upon my compass, and, twirling it round, it made 
a noise like a rattle. This rattling immediately reminded me 
of Mayfair ; it was but a step to North-End, and, when once 
you have set your foot there, you know how many difficulties 
to take it away again. Well, some time after I found myself 
looking intently on the proposition, and holding the compass 
and the case on it in my hand, but quite ignorant of what I 
was doing. I seemed to have been roused from a vision." . . . 

Then follow messages of love to the different mem- 
bers of the family, and a little significant postscript : 
" You promise you won't keep me ! " which proves how 
much the College life was appreciated.^ But though 

* My husband throughout life entertained a very decided preference 
for the Scotch system of mental training. I may illustrate this by 
some observations of his in an article, written in 1855, on the Life of 
Lord Metcalfe. That distinguished man, as a young Oxonian, professed 
to " abhor metaphysics," and in his journal prayed to be delivered 
from "the abominable spirit" of reliance on reason as a guide, — 
" blessed reason,^' as he in irony termed it : — 

" One cannot help remarking that a Scotch youth of the same age 
might be equally pious, equally steadfast in his faith, and perhaps 
more conversant with the several articles of his creed, but he never 
would have expressed the tenacity of his convictions in this manner, 



MEMOIE. 145 

he did return at the commencement of the next session, 
a sharp attack of inflammation of the lungs soon led to 
his being sent away home, and in the January of 1823 
his father died, at the age of sixty-three. 

And now came many changes, all of them fraught 
,7ith pain. There was the loss of the indulgent father, 
the spectacle of the mother's meek, deep-seated grief, 
the break-up of the cheerful home, and in addition 
there was the closing of the College career — for the 
climate of Glasgow was pronounced too severe to be 
safely returned to ; and the youth in whose secret soul 
the problems of the metaphysician and the ^dsions of 
the poet were already seething, found himself destined 
to an uncongenial calling — that of the Law. " He was 
articled," I quote from a letter of Mr. Weigall's, "to 
Mr. Sharon Turner, the Anglo-Saxon historian, who 
was by profession an attorney ; but the office routine 
was so distasteful to him that he soon solicited Mr. 
Turner to cancel his articles, but Mr. Turner told him 
he did not feel justified in doing so, as he did not 
consider William at that time the best judge of what 
was expedient for him. William dragged through the 
weary hours he was required by his agreement to spend 

never would have spoken of ' blessed reason ' ironically. . . . His 
first and last boast would have been that his faith was the perfection 
of reason. A Scotch lad, who had only breathed the air of Glasgow, 
or of Edinburgh, would have never shrunk from intellectual contest, 
or professed that the creed he held and cherished was not in perfect 
harmony with the truly blessed reason. He would as soon have 
thought of proclaiming himself a lunatic in the public streets, and 
avowing a preference for a slight shade of insanity. Such distinction 
we cannot help noticing between the systems of education in England 
and Scotland ; but we have no intention of pursuing the subject, or 
drawing any laboured comparison between their respective merits." 

K 



146 MEMOIR. 

in Mr. Turner's office, and has often told me they were 
the most tedious and profitless in his existence." When 
it is remembered, too, that at this early age necessity 
was laid upon the earnest seeker after truth to loose 
from the old moorings, and put forth, he alone, — he — 
so loving, so sensitive, so considerate of the feelings of 
others — alone on what then seemed " a dim and perilous 
way," one towards which, at all events, no member of 
his home ever so much as glanced, — it need excite no 
surprise that he viewed this period of his youth as pro- 
foundly unhappy. He would occasionally revert to it, 
but I never encouraged any reminiscence that cast a 
shadow over his spirits. I feel, however, that the 
following passage from one of his early works sprang 
from personal experience : — 

" It generally happens that the external influences of 
daily scene and customary actions oppose their timely 
resistance to the desponding humour of our early days. 
But in my own case the outward scene of life was such 
as to foster and encourage it. The encroaching dis- 
position became sole possessor of my mind. The ivy 
grew everywhere. It spread unhindered on my path, 
it stole unchecked upon my dwelling, it obscured the 
light of day, and embowered the secluded tenant in a 
fixed and stationary gloom. ... In this moody con- 
dition of my soul, every trifling disgust, every casual 
vexation, though disregarded of themselves, could sum- 
mon up a dismal train of violent and afflicting medita- 
tions. The first disturbance, the first ripple on the 
surface, soon indeed subsided, but, to take an illustration 
from some fairy tale I have read, the pebble was thrown 
upon enchanted waters, and it roused the gloomy and 



MEMOIE. 147 

tempestuous genius that lay scarce slumbering beneath 
them." ... 

Yet nothing could be more true than that " his mis- 
anthropy injured no one but its owner." Such was the 
sweetness of his nature, and his equitable recognition 
of the claims of others, that I doubt if his devoted 
mother, or any one of the home-circle "to whose 
hilarity he conspicuously contributed," ever suspected 
that beneath such a sunlit, smiling surface any gloomy 
genius whatsoever dwelt and stirred. A lady, how- 
ever, who in her character of acquaintance may have 
observed more accurately than relatives, who often 
stand too near to see, describes him at this period 
as " most gentle and gracious, but seemingly quite 
apart from the rest in his dreamy, gentle way." She 
adds : " Looking at his face, one could only think of 
the wonderful depth and intellect of his eyes — this was 
something marvellous." 

And now comes a period of which I can give scarce 
any account, for to my husband, whose life had long 
been one of abstract thinking — imjm'soiial, one might 
almost say — any attempt at recalling dates was dis- 
tinctly painful-; and I, while gladly garnering any 
crumbs that fell for me from his past, was aware that 
he could not, even had he tried, reconstruct it con- 
secutively. But I know that he lived with a most 
tender mother — a mother in whose eyes whatever 
William did was right — to whom his very leaving off 
attending church and chapel, though it might have 
disturbed her in the case of others, could not seem 
wrong. I know that his first visit to Switzerland — 
first sight of the Lake of Lucerne and the glories of 



148 MEMOIR. 

the mountains — was paid during an early period of 
youth, while there was on him that misanthropic 
Byronic mood, in which, to use his own words, " a love 
and enthusiasm for nature was a compensation for want 
of cordial sympathy with man, not a related feeling 
strengthened by and strengthening that sympathy." 

When exactly that mood passed away for ever I 
cannot determine ; but in his earliest productions it is 
already looked back upon as from a distance. I will 
finally dismiss it in two passages of his own : — 

"He who has read, and felt, and risen above the 
poetry of Byron, will be for life a wiser man for having 
once been thoroughly acquainted with the morbid senti- 
ments which there meet with so full and powerful an 
expression. And so variously are we constituted, that 
there are some who find themselves best roused to 
vigorous and sound thinking by an author with whom 
they have to contend. There ^ are who can better 
quiet their own perturbed minds by watching the 
extravagances of a stronger maniac than themselves, 
than by listening to placid strains, however eloquent. 
Some there are who seem destined to find their en- 
trance into philosophy, and into its calmest recesses, 
through the avenue of moody and discontented reflec- 
tion." And : " It is a sort of moral conversion when a 
youthful mind turns from a too exclusive admiration 
of Byron's genius to the pages of Wordsworth." This 
conversion in my husband's case took place early. 

I have heard him say that during his youth he was 
a quite rapacious reader of English and French litera- 
ture. All the dramatists, all the essayists, all the his- 
torians of both countries, in addition to their philoso- 



MEMOIR. 149 

phical writers, — nothing came amiss to him, and if the 
day seemed long in the lawyer's office, the nights flew 
in eager study. It was his custom to sit up till three 
or four. The dear mother must have had many an 
anxious thought as to the effects of such a practice on 
so sensitive and fragile a frame, but she never seems 
to have interfered, even by tender remonstrance, with 
her son's perfect liberty. I extract a passage of his 
(written in 1847) which is evidently the expression of 
a personal experience : — " The student's lamp was 
burning ; how calm, how still is the remote and secluded 
chamber ! . . . Reflection has her emotions, thrilling 
as those of passion. He who has not closed his door j 
upon the world, and sat down with books and his 
own thoughts in a solitude like this, may have lived, 
we care not in how gay a world, or how passionate an 
existence, he has yet an excitement to experience, 
which, if not so violent, is far more prolonged, deeper 
and more sustained than any he has known — than any 
which the most brilliant scenes or the most clamorous 
triumphs of life can furnish. What is all the sparkling 
exhilaration of society, the wittiest and the fairest, what 
all the throbbings and perturbations of love itself, com- 
pared with the intense feeling of the youthful thinker 
who has man, and God, and eternity for his fresh con- 
templations, who for the first time perceives in his 
solitude all the grand . enigmas of human existence 
lying unsolved about him. His brow is not corrugated, 
his eye is not inflamed ; he sits calm and serene ; a 
child would look into his face and be drawn near to 
him ; but it seems to him that on his beating heart 
the very hand of God is lying." 



150 . MEMOIR. 

One is not surprised to find that to the life of the 
lawyer and the student William Smith before long 
added that of the writer. I learn from his brother-in- 
law, Mr. Weigall, that " his first effort in print was a 
series of papers, under the head of the ' Woolgatherer,' 
published in the Literary Gazette, which he, John Sterling, 
and Maurice undertook to revive from its then mori- 
bund condition." " Sterling's father," writes Mr. 
Weigall, "the 'Thunderer' of the Times, called on me 
shortly after one of these papers (a dissertation on the 
Character of Hamlet) was published, to congratulate 
me on the impression it had produced. I remember 
his saying that ' such pure and elegant English had not 
been written since the days of Addison.' The Gazette 
became such a success that it was more than they could 
manage, as neither of them were inclined or able to 
undertake commercial cares and responsibilities, and 
they were very willing to listen to overtures made to 
them by Colburn the publisher to take it off" their 
hands, which he did, and the Gazette was thenceforth 
merged in the Athenceum." 

This incident I never heard my husband allude to. 
There are two lines of Arthur Clough's which William 
Smith might have taken for his motto throughout life. 
They contain the very essence of his character : — 

" Things so merely personal to myself 
Of all earth's things do least affect myself." 

Success or approbation, such as he would have dwelt 
on with pleasure if falling to the lot of another, 
never seemed so much as recognised in connexion 
with himself. He shrank from praise more sensitively 



MEMOIE. 151 

than from censure. The latter he could at least appro- 
priate. 

From Mr. Weigall I learn too that " the reputation 
he acquired by these papers led to his being urged to 
join the Union Debating Society." " I accompanied 
him," Mr. Weigall writes, " more than once to the 
Union debates. I remember one occasion especially, 
on which John Stuart Mill was in the chair. There 
were present on that evening Mr. Roebuck, Mr. H. L. 
Bulwer (afterwards Lord Bailing), Mr. Eomilly (the 
present Lord), Sir Henry Taylor (author of ' Philip van 
Artevelde '), and William. ... I never on any other 
occasion heard such an eloquent debate. William 
spoke chiefly in reply to Sir H. Taylor — very forcibly, 
but not with his usual gentleness." 

Of the first poems that he published, 'Guidone' 
and ' Solitude,' my husband tells the fate in ' Thorndale,' 
through the lips of Luxmore. He really did dig a 
hole in the garden and bury the unsold copies in the 
earth! How full of beautiful passages each of these 
poems is, a rapid glance even suffices to show, but they 
are too subjective and perhaps too sad to please widely. 
The abnormally introspective habit of thought that at 
this early period secretly tortured one — then, as 
always, exceptionally free from self-reference in speech 
or action — is too infrequent to awaken general interest. 
The same may be said of his first prose work, ' Ernesto : 
a Philosophical Romance,' written much about this time, 
but only published in 1835 as the last volume of 
' The Library of Romance,' edited by Leitch Ritchie. 
It was with some difficulty that I prevailed upon him 
to give me a copy of this early production, the very 



152 MEMOIR. 

story of which he had utterly forgotten, and never 
cared to glance over. Immature he no doubt was 
right in pronouncing it, but it abounds in thoughtful 
and eloquent passages. There is in it the promise 
of ' Thorndale.' I will only make two extracts from 
it, both of which have an autobiographical interest. 
The first describes the experience of an unsuccessful 
poet : — 

" I sought it not — I sought not this gift of poetry — 
I despised not the ruder toils of existence — I strove to 
pursue them, but I strove in vain. I could not walk 
along this earth with the busy forward tread of other 
men. The fair wonder detained and withheld me. 
Flowers on their slender stalks could prove a hindrance 
in my path ; the light acacia would fling the barrier of 
its beauty across my way ; the slow-thoughted stream 
would bend me to its winding current. Was it fault 
of mine that all nature was replete with feeling that 
compassed and enthralled me ? On the surface of the 
lake at even-tide there lay how sweet a sadness ! Hope 
visited me from the blue hills. There was perpetual 
revelry of thought amidst the clouds and in the wide 
cope of heaven. The passion of the poet came to me, 
not knowing what it was. It came, the gift of tranquil 
skies, and was breathed by playful zephyrs, and fell on 
me with serene influence from the bright and silent 
stars. 

"I saw others pursuing and enjoying the varied 
prosperity of life. I felt no envy at their success, and 
no participation in their desires. I could not call in 
and limit my mind to the concerns of a personal wel- 
fare. I had leaned my ear unto the earth, and heard 



MEMOIR. 153 

the beating of her mighty heart and the murmur of 
her mysteries, and my spirit had lost its fitness for any 
selfish aim or narrow purpose. I stood forth to be the 
interpreter of his own world to man. Alas ! I myself 
am but one — the poorest of the restless and craving 
multitude. 

" Gone ! gone for ever ! is the pleasant hope that 
danced along my path with feet that never wearied 
and timbrel that never paused ! Oh, gay illusion, 
whither hast thou led me, and to what desolation has 
the music of thy course conducted ! I am laden as it 
were with the fruitage of kind afi'ections, but I myself 
am forlorn and disregarded ; I kindle with innumerable 
sympathies, but am shut out for ever from social en- 
dearments, from the sweet relationships that make 
happy the homes of other men. I am faint with love 
of the beautiful, and my heart pants with its unclaimed 
devotion — but who may love the poet in his poverty?" 

The second passage that I quote from ' Ernesto ' em- 
bodies the conclusions of a speculative intellect that, 
having " proved all things" with unflinching energy, 
could best " hold fast" what it recognised as funda- 
mental truth — fundamental, and vital to the thinker 
from first to last ! 

" The most sublime, the most essential, the most 
irresistible of all doctrines — the existence of an Intel- 
lectual Creator of the universe — needs the support of 
other faculties than reason. The many learned treatises 
which daily appear to elucidate and confirm what is 
called the argument from design, would prove as feeble 
and ineff*ectual as they are felt to be strong and con- 



154 MEMOIR. 

vincing were they restricted in their appeal to a passion- 
less and unimaginative intellect. ... 

" In such questions, a reason, unsupported by the 
common feelings of our nature, and by those associa- 
tions of thought which such feelings have generated or 
maintained, might probably oscillate for ever. But 
indeed it is not as a doctrine explanatory of the world's 
creation that the belief of a divine existence holds 
the place it does in the mind of man. We claim 
a humanized causation. Our transiency seeks support 
on an eternal mind, our fears implore, our hopes solicit, 
a beneficence that is beyond the circle and superior to 
the dominion of nature. AVe may cavil, but we must 
believe ; the heart demands it, and reason allows if she 
could not compel. Do we wish by this to enfeeble 
the proof of a divine existence 1 We could not live a 
day, an hour, without this faith. We desire only to 
point out the indissoluble union, the harmony and 
necessary co-operation of the several faculties of the 
human mind — of the reason, the feelings, and the ima- 
gination. We honour this compounded and complicate 
condition of humanity. Is it for nothing that we are 
imaginative beings ? that we must for ever carry forth 
the feelings of a known world into the region of the 
unknown ? He who would deny to his affections all 
influence on his belief must either pronounce (and this 
is frequent and harmless) that to be the pure result of 
ratiocination to which other operations of the mind 
have greatly contributed ; or in the almost suicidal 
attempt to separate himself entirely from the control of 
feeling, he must unsocialize his reason, deprive himself 
of some of the greatest sources of human felicity, and lose, 



MEMOIR. 155 

it may be, the needful guidance and restraint of those 
very passions which he so contemptuously estimated." 

In 1836 and 1837 my husband wrote several articles 
for the Quarterly Bevieiu, in reference to which I find 
some notes from Lockhart, at that time its editor. 
These, and a few other letters that I shall presently 
refer to, had been put aside by William long years ago, 
and first came to sight again after our marriage, when a 
box of stored-away books was sent to him at Brighton. 
I remember well that his first impulse was to destroy 
these letters, but I pleaded for their preservation, and 
they were therefore consigned to another stationary and 
seldom-opened box, and thus escaped the doom of every 
justly appreciating written tribute paid him in later 
years — the flames. I can recall a note from Mr. J. S. 
Mill, in the autumn of 1865, alluding in his large- 
hearted, generous way to certain lectures William had 
delivered at Kensington more than twenty years before 
(lectures of which I had heard Jiim make casual and dis- 
paraging mention), and that note I meant to abstract and 
preserve; but when next I rummaged my husband's little 
desk — which always stood open to my inspection — I 
could not find it; the note had been burnt ! But to return 
to the Quarterly. It appears that Mr. Lockhart did not 
wish it to transpire that William Smith's articles were 
those of a young and unknown writer. In one of the 
notes I find, " I have heard nothing but good of your 
paper on Landor, and I am sure it has told tenfold the 
more from no one knowing as yet where it came from. 
Be it so with Mr. Bulwer. You will lose nothing in 
the issue." Never surely did editor find a contributor 
more conveniently willing to suppress himself ! Two 



156 MEMOIR. 

of these articles were on legal subjects, one on Sir Harris 
Nicholas — -a kind friend of my husband's, at whose 
house he was in the habit of meeting interesting society 
—one was on Modern Science, the remaining two on 
Landor and Bulwer. 

I wish I could more distinctly trace William Smith's 
legal experiences. I know that he studied every branch 
of law that a solicitor can practise, before he began to 
read for the bar with a Mr. Brodie. I think that it must 
have been in 1838 that he was called to the bar at the 
Middle Temple. Although I have spoken of office 
routine as irksome to him, yet in the history and philo- 
sophy of Jurisprudence he always found vivid interest, 
and would recommend the study as eminently favourable 
to the best development of the mind. Certainly he 
never in later years regretted having undergone this 
legal training. Perhaps he owed to it the rare tem- 
pering of lively imagination by shrewdest common 
sense, of quick feeling by dispassionate judgment. 
But in his early days the bias towards a life devoted 
to poetry and abstract thought was too strong to be 
resisted without suffering, and the combining profes- 
sional study with literary pursuits must have been a 
strain upon a frame that was never a strong one. On 
no point was his counsel to the young more strenuous 
than in regard to the dangers of such divided allegiance. 
Here are some words of his on the subject : — " It is a 
piece of advice we would give to every man, but 
especially to the student — Harmonize your labours. 
If ambition prompt you to mingle two conflicting studies 
that will not accord, that breed perpetual civil war in 
the mind, we charge you to fling away ambition. If 



MEMOIR. 157 

the higher and more beloved study — be it science, or 
poetry, or philosophy — will not yield, then choose at 
once for it and poverty, if such must be the alternative. 
Better anything than a ruined, disordered mind ; or, if 
you prefer the expression, than a confirmed cerebral 
disease." We shall find the writer of this passage 
making such decided choice by and bye. But the time 
had not yet come. 

In 1839 "William Smith published 'A Discourse on 
Ethics of the School of Paley.' " The late Professor 
Terrier," I quote from the obituary notice in the Scots- 
man, " used to speak of this pamphlet, — in bulk it is 
nothing more, — as one of the best written and most 
ingeniously reasoned attacks upon Cudworth's doctrine 
that had ever appeared." It is interesting to find that 
the favourite brother Theyre — William's fellow-student 
at Glasgow, — who had now for several years been a 
clergyman of the Church of England, and was Hulsean 
Lecturer in 1839-40, adopted the opposite stand-point, 
and in the notes to the second volume of his Lectures 
vigorously contends against the theory put forth in 
the ' Discourse on Ethics,' while admitting, with 
evident satisfaction, that it had never " met with a more 
ingenious as well as eloquent advocate." 

It was also in 1839 that my husband, having been 
introduced by Mr. Warren to the Messrs. Blackwood, 
wrote his first article, entitled ' A Prosing on Poetry,' for 
their Magazine. Thus began a much-valued connexion, 
that endured to the end of his life, and an uninterrupted 
friendship. His contributions were very varied — tales, 
adaptations from foreign literature, at first intermingled 
with reviews. Later the articles became more exclu- 



158 MEMOIR. 

sively critical and devoted to philosophical subjects. I 
have the whole series, bound up in eight volumes, 
containing a hundred and twenty papers, not one of 
them hastily or carelessly written, not one that does 
not contain unbiassed criticism and earnest thought. I 
often look at the volumes regretfully : so much wisdom 
and charm of style seems buried there — forgotten ! But 
I cannot doubt that these contributions did good work in 
their day, enlarged and enriched many a kindred mind, 
woke inquiry and diffused toleration. Some years ago 
Mr. Blackwood proposed to reprint a selection from 
them, but my husband declined, and though he still 
would from habit tear out and lay aside his articles, I 
found written on the paper that contained all those of 
later date, " To be burnt — when — ." In that one 
instance I could not obey him. 

In 1840 William Smith published a pamphlet on 
Law Eeform, written in his own easy, lucid style, " for 
the general reader," and calling, not only for certain 
changes that have since taken place, but for several 
now under consideration. 

I think that about this time my husband's life must 
have been peculiarly pleasant. He was still living 
with the mother who so loved him, and whom he so 
loved ; there were cheerful homes of married brothers 
and sisters, where he was always eagerly welcomed — 
depended upon on social occasions to make the " party 
go off well" by his bright talk and smile — and he had 
besides his own ^circle of personal friends, amongst 
whom I may name George Henry Lewes,^ Samuel War- 

^ Since I wrote this Mr. Lewes has sent me his reminibcencea of 
his friend, which I gratefully transcribe here, though they refer to a 



MEMOIR. 159 

ren, the author of ' The Correlation of Physical Forces ' 
(now Mr. Justice Grove), Frederick Denison Maurice, 
and John Sterling. I have before alluded to his habit 
of under-estimating — perhaps I should rather say his 
inability to realize — the amount of the regard he inspired. 
Hence, while delighting to enlarge upon the special 
merits of more successful men, he would touch very 
lightly upon his own intercourse with them. But from 
other sources I know something of the charm they 
found in his society, and the regret with which they 

somewhat later period. " It was, I think, early in the year 1842 that 
I first made the acquaintance of William Smith, an acquaintance that 
very rapidly grew into a friendship over which no cloud ever crossed. 
Our ways of life separated us, and we saw but little of each other 
duiing the last twenty years, but the separation was of bodies only, 
not of minds. He was at first what I knew him at last, one of the few 
men deservedly called distinguished, a genuine and mdividual nature 
not in any degree factitious or commonplace. He was himself, and 
all his opinions and sentiments were his own, not echoes or compro- 
mises. In spite of his shyness, there was an affectionate expansive- 
ness in his manner which irresistibly attracted me, and although I 
always spoke of him as 'Little Smith,' the epithet, absurd enough 
coming from one no bigger than himself, only expressed the sort of 
tender feeling one has for a woman. So far from its implying any 
assumption of superiority, I regarded him not only as my elder, but 
in many respects my superior ; and in the height of our discussions, 
which were incessant, my antagonism was always tempered by that 
veneration which one ii-resistibly feels in presence of a genuine nature. 
It was this genuineness, and his keen flexible sympathy, which formed 
the great charm of his society. One felt thoroughly at home with 
him at once. 

"At that time he had lodgings in Pembroke Square, Kensington. 
I lived in the same Square, so that we saw each other frequently ; 
though it was I who mostly had to pay the visit, his reserve making 
him less Avilling to come in to me. He led a lonely, uncomfortable 
life, as such a man in lodgings inevitably must, unless he goes into 
society. I used to preach to him against his waste of time in desul- 
tory study, and his injudicious arrangement of the hours of work. In 
vain. Like most literaiy men, he had a prejudice in favour of night- 
work, and would fritter away the precious hours of morning, taking 



160 MEMOIR. 

lost sight of him ; and I shall here copy a letter of 
Sterling's — the man of all others I have heard my 
husband say whom he could have best loved — both 
because it is interesting in itself, and proves the value 
Sterling set upon his friend : — 

" Clifton, January 6th, 1840. 
" My dear Smith, — I have very little time for writing any 
but tlie most indispensable letters before I leave England. 
Yours, however, is too kind, and gave me too much unexpected 



little exercise, and less relaxation. I used to tell him that marriage 
was the only safety for him — and so it proved ! So affectionate a 
nature could not be content with study and work : the heart claimed 
its own ! 

"There was another point on which I used to preach with equal 
unsuccess— the waste of bis fine mind in metaphysical research. This 
was a standing subject of controversy. His profound seriousness and 
restless desire to get to the bottom of every subject made him cling 
pertinaciously to even the faintest hope of a possible answer. to those 
questions which for centuries have vexed speculative minds, and no 
failure could discourage him . 

" We were always hattling, yet never once did we get even near a 
quarrel. On many points, wide as the poles asunder, we managed to 
mangle each other's arguments without insult, and whenever opposi- 
tion seemed verging towards the excitation of temper, some playful 
remark or wild paradox of retort was ready to clear the air with 
laughter. In this way we ' travelled over each other's minds,' and 
travelled over the universe. On matters of poetry and criticism we 
were more at one ; but even there, precisely because Smith had his 
own views, his own mode of looking at things, there was an endless 
charm iii listening to him and differing from him. Till deep into the 
night we would sit ' talking of lovely things that conquer death ; ' and 
I seem now to see the sweet smile and the lustrous eye fixed on me, 
and hear his pleasant voice playfully uttering some fine truth. One 
of the noticeable points in him was the lambent playfulness, combined 
with great seriousness, the subtle humour and the subtle thought 
which gave a new aspect to old opinions, so that we may say of him 
what Goethe says of Schiller, that — 

' Hinter ihm, ira wesenlosen Scheine, 
Lag, was uns Alle bandigt — das Gemeine.' " 



MEMOIR. 161 

pleasure, to be left unacknowledged. . I attach little value to 
the contents of my volume as jjoems, but had my judgment of 
them been different, no corroboration of it from others could 
give me the kind of gratification which I derive from finding 
that you sometimes think of me, and return so cordially the 
regard which I must always feel for you. The future is with 
me still more uncertain than with most people, but if any among 
the strange chances of life should bring us within reach of 
each other, I should consider it a more unalloyed advantage 
and pleasure than most of those which life affords. As to the 
Professorship, my suggestion in answer to Mill's inquiry 
whether I knew of a fitting person would have been the same 
had I known of you only what I have read in your writings. 
There was at that time some reason to imagine the stars might 
be turned from their courses for once, and the Glasgow Pro- 
fessors from jobbing. It would have been, of course, very 
pleasant to see you in your right place, and I still trust that 
some opportunity may arise of having you established as a 
public teacher. 

" 1 should be very glad to know something of what you are 
about, and also to have some accounts of Theyre and of Weigall 
— to both of whom pray remember me warmly. I leave this on 
Friday for Falmouth, whence I am to embark for Madeira. I 
have had a long and severe illness, and at one time seemed 
hardly likely to recover. It is still very doubtful whether I 
can face another English winter, and I may very possibly be 
afloat again on this yeasty world — with a wife and four children 
to lighten my movements. At all events, I shall be always 
affectionately yours, JoH^r Sterling." 

In connexion with this faint hope of a Glasgow 
Chair, to which the letter alludes, I find two notes of 
Mr. J. S. Mill's, full of friendly co-operation and in- 
terest ; but highly as my husband esteemed the post of 
Professor of Moral Philosophy in a Scotch University, I 
am sure that the whole scheme arose entirely from the 
zeal of a few friends, and that its impracticability gave 

L 



162 MEMOIR. 

him no sense of disappointment. I never heard liim 
dwell upon it. 

In the summer of 1842 a great grief befell him. His 
dear mother died at the age of seventy-five, having 
survived her husband nineteen years. I have spoken 
of the peculiar tenderness between the mother and son. 
Some friends who remember her well have described 
her to me in her later years, placid and smiling in her 
arm-chair, knitting away, with William seated on a 
footstool beside her, kissing her hand, interrupting her 
work by his playful ways and tender raillery, she pre- 
tending to chide — she, so proud, so fond ! Into his 
intellectual nature, his thought-life, the dear mother 
did not and could not enter, but she had a boundless 
love for him ; his comforts, his tastes, were paramount 
with her ; he was her first object always, and one of his 
surviving sisters writes to me : — " I shall never forget 
the desolation of heart William expressed when the 
grave closed over our mother." Later, his wife and he 
held it as a treasure in common that both were the 
youngest and peculiarly loved children of their mothers, 
and never felt their hearts more closely knit together 
than when speaking of them. I believe that he spent 
the winter of that first orphan year with a married 
sister. Afterwards the dreary London lodging life to 
which Mr. Lewes refers must have set in. 

The play of ' Athelwold' was published in 1842, and 
I transcribe, from one of Mr. Mill's notes, a passage 
relating to it, not without interest, knowing whose 
criticism it is that he quotes : — 

" I showed your play to the most superior woman I have ever 
known, and the most fastidious judge of poetry, and she writes 



MEMOIR. 163 

to me about it : ' I like the play very much. I think the sub- / 

ject an excellent one, and the mode of saying it natural, / 

healthy, and quite free from the affectation of "old dramatists," ~"/ 
which is an affectation I, of all others, most nauseate. It is the 
only play, and almost the only poem, of the present time which 
I know without affected mannerism.' ^^ 

" I think it worth while telling you of this opinion, because, , • , ^ 

if you were acquainted with the writer, I am sure you would -^^ ''> '' " /' 
attach real value to her judgment, and especially to her appro- jbZt(yf^ ^ 
bation. — Ever yours, J. S. Mill." ^>Cl!^4 

Here is another letter on the subject of * Athelwold,' 
a little flowery and prolix, but also interesting : — 

" 3 Serjeants' Inn, 8th Feby. 184-3. 
*' Dear Sir, — I have long desired to gratify myself by ex- 
pressing to you the deep admiration with which, attracted by 
the extracts I saw in the weekly papers, I perused your tragedy 
of ' Athelwold,' and by seeking from you such recognition of a 
common love for dramatic literature as may be testihed by your 
acceptance of my very frail and imperfect attempts at that 
delightful species of poetry. I hope I do not trespass too far 
on your good-nature, emboldened by some old recollections of 
several members of your family, and by the assurance of Mr. 
Warren that my offering will not be unwelcome, when I ask 
you to accept of my own slender dramas, and of the earnest 
wish I cherish that you may realize the splendid promise which 
your ' Athelwold ' has given to the world. It seems to me to 
combine more purely dramatic power with more of poetical 
luxuriance and tenderness than any of the dramas which have, 
within the last few years, sprung from the imagination of our 
national genius. The only obstacles which I perceive to its 
entire success in representation are the impossibility of pre- 
senting any image of that loveliness which, in its infant perfec- 
tion, charmed the mighty Dimstan, and the magic power of 
which sways the heart of 'Athelwold,' and the destinies of the 
scene— which, being seen, will not be believed — and in the too 
painful nature of Elfrida's perfidy, and the wearying agony of 



164 MEMOIE. 

the closing scenes — wearying tHough. touched and softened by 
exquisite beauty. But on that inner stage — the theatre which 
every true lover of the dramatic poem lights up within his own 
mind as he reads — will * Athelwold ' ever hold a noble place, 
which no bad passions of managers, nor caprices of actors, nor 
envy of author-critics shall abolish or destroy. My own plays 
are, I well know, mere proofs of the affection of one who has 
loved, ' not wisely but too well,' the dramatic form of poetry, 
and has been unduly tempted by the opportunity of tasting 
the pleasure which, with all its alloy, does belong to the reali- 
zation of the conceptions of the mind on the stage. That 
you may attain this pleasure with as little of the annoyances 
which encircle it as theatrical associations will permit, and 
extend and complete the lasting fame which your first work 
promises, and find in all dramatic creation to be its ' exceeding 
great reward,' is the earnest wish of, dear Sir, your faithful and 
obedient servant, T. N. Talfourd." 

In the spring of 1843, Mr. Macready made applica- 

cation to the author for permission to act ' Athelwold.' 

I find two little notes on the subject, and give the 

second : — 

" 5 Clarence Terrace, Regent's Park, 

"My dear Sir, — We are about to endeavour, with your 
permission, to give a representation of ' Athelwold ' before the 
close of our present season. I very much regret my intention 
of producing it should have been so long deferred, but in a 
theatre the most careful plans are constantly deranged by unex- 
pected circumstances. 

" I should wish to have your assent and also your approval 
of the large omissions which must of necessity be made in its 
performance, — Yours, my dear Sir, most sincerely, 

" W. C. Macready." 

On the first night of its representation the play met 
Vith decided success, and the author was enthusias- 
tically called for. What seemed to have imj^ressed 



MEMOIE. 165 

him most on the occasion was Macready's exquisite 
rendering of the character of ' Athelwold.' Miss Helen 
Faucit (now Mrs. Theodore Martin) recollects that one 
particular moment in her impersonation of Elfrida was 
pronounced by Macready " the best thing she ever did." 
We have seen that the season was already drawing to 
a close. The play had therefore a brief run, and why 
it was not reproduced the following year I know not 
with any certainty. 

The autumn of 1843 was spent by my husband in 
Paris, where the lectures at the Sorbonne were his 
especial interest. I have before me a note to his 
sister, Mrs. Weigall, characteristically describing his 
position in a French boarding-house : " stuttering out 
my broken sentences of French, thinking it a great 
good fortune if the simplest thing I utter is understood, 
and a great honour if the dullest person in the company 
will condescend to talk to me." 

I know that for a time William Smith went the 
Western Circuit, but to him it proved " so expensive 
and profitless he had to relinquish it." Probably he 
had already done so at this time, for, in the summer of 
1845, he made a tour in Switzerland. How intensely 
he enjoyed it appears in a paper, — ' The Mountain and 
the Cloud,' — written on his return, and published in 
BlacJcvjoocVs Magazine. And in a letter to the sister 
who was his regular correspondent, I find expressions 
of delight : " I saw Mont Blanc to perfection, the lake, 
and the splendid scenery that lies between. This ivas 
pleasure ! To be carried by a mule over the mountain- 
passes, alone, your guide walking silent behind, the 
beast taking care of himself and you too, the eye 



166 MEMOIR. 

greeted at every turn by something new and great, /, 
in my poor experience of life, have had no enjoyment 
comparable to it." 

The winter following was spent in Brussels, at the 
house of his eldest brother Frederick (who had for 
some years lived in Belgium), where William had the 
cheerful companionship of young nieces. It was there 
he wrote ^ Sir William Crichton,' which appeared, with 
a reprint of * Athelwold,' and of his two early poems, 
in a small, a very small unpretending volume,^ pub- 
lished by Pickering towards the end of 1846. I copy 
Serjeant Talfourd's estimate of the play :■ — 

"S Serjeants' Inn, Chancery Lane, 
Ath February/ 1847. 
" Dear Sir, — You have added greatly to the obHgation you 
conferred on me by sending me your noble tragedy of ' Athel- 
wold,' when you directed your publisher to present me with 
your small volume containing that drama and two others of 
kindred — one, at least in my humble judgment, of superior — 
merit. Of ' Guidone ' I have been able only to take a glance, 
too transient to know more than that it is worthy of its author; 
but ' Sir William Crichton ' I have read with the deep and 
earnest attention it commands and requites, and feel that I 

1 Tills small volume was never widely circulated, but it met with 
cordial recognition from a few. Walter Savage Landor was one of 
those who estimated it highly. It is to Mr. Weigall that I owe this 
knowledge. He writes thus : " About eighteen years ago I saw a 
good deal of Laudor. On one occasion I mentioned William's works. 
He said immediately : ' I know Mr, Smith, and everything he has 
published. I have a great respect for him, sir. There are things in 
his works quite equal to anything that Shakespeare ever wrote.' I 
said I was much gratified to hear him say so, and wished the world 
thought so too. He replied, ' The world does not think so now, 
because it is chiefly composed of fools ; but I know it, and I believe 
some day the world will agree with me.' " 



MEMOIR. 167 

have acquired a possession for life. Whether enough of stirring 
action would remain if all its fine shadings of thought were 
withdrawn, to fill the stage for the ordinary point of tragic 
development, I will not determine ; but that with much of 
picturesque action and heroic character it has the highest excel- 
lence of thoughtful beauty, of affections steeped in meditative 
sweetness, I am as sure as that I think and feel ; while I read 

it, to me 

' There is that within 
Makes all external scene, whate'er it be, 
Mere dream and phantom — merely moving cloud 
Athwart some pale and stationary thought.' 

And those lines, which seem to me indicative of your true 
genius, seem also to me among the most beautiful ever written. 
If Heaven gave me such a choice, there are very few of which 
I had rather been the author." 

It was in the spring of 1846 that my husband visited 
Italy.^ He travelled, as usual, alone, and with eager, 
unresting haste. I have heard him say that he spoke 
to no one ; that the excitement the marvels of ancient 
art occasioned was inexpressible ; that he went on from 
place to place regardless of fatigue. From Rome he 
writes to his sister, Mrs. Weigall : — " I must tell you 
that I, even I, am here — that I have seen St. Peter's, 
the Vatican, the Coliseum, and I know not what collec- 
tions of statues and paintings." The morning after 
his arrival he " sallied forth to St. Peter's ;" one gladly 
realizes how light the step must have been, how vivid 
the enjoyment ! 

1 I think it must have been before this that the bust here photo- 
graphed was taken. The sculptor, Mr. Weigall, writes of it as fol- 
lows : " I saw then in William the profound philosopher, the pene- 
trating, calm, judicious critic, and the tender, passionate poet, and, 
I believe, to those who have eyes to see such things, all these phases 
of his character may be found in the bust." 



168 MEMOIR. 

" I had been prepared," he says, " to expect that the gigantic 
proportions of the statuary and other accessories took off from 
the apparent magnitude of the building ; but what I was not 
prepared for was the magnificent effect of all this gigantic 
statuary. From the moment you enter within the limits of 
St. Peter's everything swells out into colossal proportions. The 
interior of the dome is perfect — so mellow and so chaste with 
all its splendours. Then the effect of the high altar is quite 
startling. It stands j ust under the dome (in pictures it appears 
necessarily as if at the extremity of the building). You know 
the four twisted columns of bronze, but you have iciotfelt their 
height ; and besides, there is much of this altar that cannot be 
represented in a picture, as it lies beneath the surface. A 
marble staircase descends before the altar. You look down and 
see golden doors, and before them a marble image of a Pope 
kneeling there in eternal prayer for the people. Then in every 
direction such stupendous sculpture : figures thrown with such 
audacity and grace over the architraves ; and above all, the 
tombs of various Pontiffs, which add to their other merits that 
of being so well placed that at first they seem groups designed 
only for the ornament of the church. But what shall I say of 
the Vatican ? of the Apollo, the Laocoon, of a certain Jupiter 
Tonans, the most sublime representation of the old ruler of the 
skies ? I had better say nothing, for in my present mood I 
should probably be guilty of some extravagance. There is also 
a collection of sculpture at the Capitol — the celebrated Dying 
Gladiator, a Venus, and the delightful little group of Cupid and 
Psyche ; in short, the sculpture here is beyond all description 
admirable, and the delight I have experienced is more than I 
would willingly make even the attempt to express. 

"Then have I not seen the Sistine Chapel, and the frescos 
of Michael Angelo ? Now as to these, you know, or at least 
Henry knows, (how often have I thought that he ought to have 
been here ! ) that these consist first of a large picture on the 
wall representing the Last Day, and of the compartments of 
the roof. Now for that same large picture of the Last Day : I 
got nothing from it ; it excited in me no sentiment whatever ; 
I have not a word to say about it ; but some of those compart- 



MEMOIR. 169 

ments of the roof are amongst the sublimest things I have ever 
beheld. The effect is quite thrilling — is awful. You breathe 
hard as you look up to them. 

" The Coliseum I have not seen by moonlight, and probably 
shall not ; but on a very beautiful day I traversed it and 
mounted it, and explored it in all directions. It is certainly 
the king of ruins. And you see from it the principal ruins of 
ancient Eome ; you have the blue hills on the horizon, so that 
a visit to the Coliseum is full of interest. But I am falling, I 
fear, into the gossip of travellers, which is just a reminiscence 
to themselves of a pleasure they have had, but which conveys 
nothing to any other. As to the city of Rome, I can tell you 
that all that is not temple or palace is filth and wretchedness. 
... I wish to see other parts of Italy, and therefore cannot 
stop very long in any one. My next stage will be Naples, then 
I retrace my steps to Florence, to Venice, to Milan, through 
Switzerland and the Khine, home ; all which, though it sounds 
a great deal, wiU not take much time in accomplishing." 

This programme however was slightly modified. On 
his homeward way he became very ill, and had to make 
a halt at his eldest brother's house in Brussels. By 
him William was, as I have often heard the latter 
recall, most tenderly nursed. In many particulars 
there was a family likeness between the two men. 
Both had the faculty of inspiring intense affection in 
those who knew them best, both the same refined 
courtesy in domestic life. Their cast of mind was 
indeed dissimilar, but the elder brother fully appreci- 
ated the nature of the younger. I shall never forget 
his looking at William with moistened eyes, on the 
occasion of a flying visit of ours many years later, and 
saying : " He was always quite different from the rest of 
the world." His daughters, too, most lovingly remem- 
ber the student uncle, so interested in their pursuits, so 



170 MEMOIK. 

encouraging, so playful.^ In him the solitary . nature 
was strangely combined, or I might rather say alter- 
nated, with the eminently social. When he did come 
out of his own element of abstract thought, it was to 
enter with genuine interest into the very slightest 
concerns of others ; to set talk flowing with greater 
spontaneity ; to bring out the best of every mind. He 
came into a room where he felt himself welcome like 
an influx of fresh air and light. Whoever he addressed 
was conscious of a certain exhilaration and increased 
freedom, for he, more than any person I have known, 
" gave one leave to be one's-self " 

But it may be asked. Why are not more of his own 
letters quoted to illustrate his character better than the 
words of another can 1 I do not know that there are 
any of his early letters extant. At no time of his life 

1 It is to one of these nieces that I owe the following lines of his, 
which she tells me her uncle put into her hand as a kind of reply to 
some theological discussion or other, which, with the self-assertion of 
early youth, she had tried to force upon him : — 

CHRISTIAN RESIGNATION. 

There is a sweetness in the world's despair, 

There is a rapture of serenity, 
When severed quite from earthly hope or care. 

The heart is free to suffer or to die. 

The crown, the palm, of saints in Paradise, 
My wearied spirit does not crave to win ; 

Breathe— in Thy cup, Christ, of agonies — 
Breathe Thy deep love, and let me drink therein. 

To weep as Thou hast wept, I ask no more, 
Be mine the sorroAvs that were known to Thee ; 

To the bright heavens I have no strength to soar, 
But I Avould find Thee on Thy Calvary. 



MEMOIR. 171 

does he appear to have kept up a large or varied cor- 
respondence, and he had an especial dislike to letters 
of his being preserved or referred to. In more than 
one case I know he entreated that they should be 
destroyed, and (however reluctantly) his wish was 
complied with. I think it proceeded from the same 
quite abnormal sensitiveness, that made him shrink 
not only from any allusion to his own books, but from 
the very sight of them. Never was I able to keep a 
volume of his writing on table or shelf for three days 
together ! Silently they would be abstracted or pushed 
into some dark recess. But as to his letters — though 
naturally I am averse to extract from my own stores, 
and I have no letters on general subjects to draw 
from — I know from testimony as well as experience 
that they were quite special in their simplicity and 
natural grace. No one familiar with him could pos- 
sibly have attributed his shortest note to any other 
person. It was sure to bear some indefinable stamp 
of his individuality. Here is a passage of his re- 
garding the letters of Southey, most applicable to his 
own : — 

" The letters- as we advance through these volumes, 
become more and more characterized by that consum- 
mate ease and unstudied elegance which are the result 
only of long practice in composition ; for the perfect 
freedom and grace of the epistolary style may be 
described as the spontaneous expression of one pre- 
viously habituated to a choice selection of terms. It 
requires this combination of present haste and past 
study. The pen should run without a pause, without 
an after-thought, and the page be left without a correc- 



172 MEMOIR. 

tion ; but it must be the pen of one who in times past 
has paused very long and corrected very often." 

The influence of William Smith's foreign tours is 
traceable in his contributions to Blackwood's Magazine 
during the years 1846 and 1847. 'Mildred,' a tale 
published in the latter year, the scene of which is laid 
in Italy, contains some descriptions of the treasures of 
the Vatican, which will, I think, be read with interest. 
The extract following is taken from a conversation 
between two who are in heart even more than friends, 
while outwardly something less : — 

" ' You are before the Amazon,' said Winston ; ' it is 
the statue of all others which has most fascinated me. 
I cannot understand why it should bear the name it 
does. I suppose the learned in these matters have 
their reasons : I have never inquired nor feel disposed 
to inquire into them ; but I am sure the character of 
the statue is not Amazonian. That attitude — the 
right arm raised to draw aside the veil, the left hand 
at its elbow steadying it — that beautiful countenance, 
so full of sadness and of dignity — no, these cannot 
belong to an Amazon.' 

" ' To a woman,' said Mildred, ' it is allowed to be 
indifferent on certain points of learning ; and in such 
cases as this I certainly take advantage to the full 
privilege of my sex. I care not what they call the 
statue. It may have been called an Amazon by Greek 
and Roman — it may have been so named by the artist 
himself when he sent it home to his patron ; I look at 
it as a creation standing between me and the mind of 
the artist : and sure I am, that, bear- what name it may, 
the sculptor has embodied here all that his soul had felt 



MEMOIR. 173 

of the sweetness and power and dignity of woman. It 
is a grander creation than any goddess I have seen; 
has more of thought.' 

" ' And as a consequence/ interposed Winston, ' more 
of sadness, of unhappiness. How the mystery of life 
seems to hang upon that pensive brow ! I used to 
share an impression, which I believe is very general, 
that the deep sorrow which comes of thought, the 
reflective melancholy which results from pondering on 
the bitter problem of life, was peculiar to the moderns. 
This statue and others which I have lately seen have 
convinced me that the sculptor of antiquity has occa- 
sionally felt and expressed whatever could be extracted 
from the mingled poetry of a Byron and a Goethe.' 

'"It seems that the necessity of representing the gods 
in the clear light of happiness and knowledge deprived 
the Greek artist of one great source of sublimity. But 
it is evident,' continued Mildred, ' that the mysterious, 
with its attendant sorrow, was known also to him. 
How could it be otherwise ? Oh ! what a beautiful 
creation is this we stand before ! And what an art it 
is which permits us to stand thus before a being 
of this high order, and note all its noble passions ! 
From the real life we should turn our eyes away, or 
drop them abashed upon the ground. Here is more 
than life, and we may look on it by the hour, and mark 
its graceful sorrow, its queen-like beauty, and this over- 
mastered grief which we may wonder at but dare not 
pity.' 

" They passed on to other statues. They paused 
before the Menander sitting in his chair. ' The attitude,' 
said she, ' is so noble that the chair becomes a throne. 



1 74 MEMOIR. 

But still, how plainly it is intellectual power that sits 
enthroned there ! The posture is imperial ; and yet 
how evident that it is the empire of thought only that 
he governs in ! And this little statue of Esculapius,' 
she added, ' kept me a long while before it. The 
healing sage — how faithfully is he represented ! "What 
a sad benevolence — acquainted with pain — compelled 
to inflict even in order to restore.' 

" They passed through the Hall of the Muses. 

" ' How serene are all the Muses ! ' said Winston. 
' This is as it should be. Even Tragedy, the most moved 
of all, how evidently her emotion is one of thought, not 
of passion ! Though she holds the dagger in her down- 
dropt hand, how plainly we see that she has not used 
it ! She has picked it up from the floor after the fatal 
deed was perpetrated, and is musing on the terrible 
catastrophe, and the still more terrible passions that 
led to it.' 

'' They passed through the Hall of the Animals^ but 
this had comparatively little attraction for Mildred. 
Her companion pointed out the bronze Centaur for her 
admiration. 

" ' You must break a Centaur in half,' said she, 
' before I can admire it. And if I am to look at a satyr, 
pray let the goat's legs be hid in the bushes. I cannot 
embrace in one conception these fragments of man and 
brute. Come with me to the neighbouring gallery. I 
wish to show you a Jupiter seated at the further end 
of it, which made half a Pagan of me this morning as I 
stood venerating it.' 

" ' The head of your Jupiter,' said Winston, as they 
approached it, ' is surpassed I think by more than one 



MEMOIK. 175 

bust of the same god that we have already seen ; and 
I find something of stiffness or rigidity in the figure ; 
hut the impression it makes as a whole is very grand.' 

" * It will grow wonderfully on you as you look at 
it,' said Mildred. ' How well it typifies all that a 
Pagan would conceive of the Supreme Euler of the 
Skies, the controller of the powers of nature, the great 
administrator of the world who has the Fates for his 
council ! His power irresistible, but no pride in it, no 
joy, no triumph. He is without passion. In his right 
hand lies the thunder, but it reposes on his thigh ; and 
his left hand rests calmly upon his tall sceptre sur- 
mounted by an eagle. In his countenance there is the 
tranquillity of unquestioned supremacy, but there is no 
repose. There is care, a constant wakefulness. It is 
the governor of a nature whose elements have never 
known one moment's pause.' 

"'I see it as you speak,' said Winston. He then 
proposed that they should go together and look at the 
Apollo, but Mildred excused herself. 

" ' I have paid my devotions to the god,' she said, 
' this morning, when the eyes and the mind were fresh. 
I would not willingly displace the impression that I 
now carry away for one -which would be made on a 
fatigued and jaded attention.' 

'' ' Is it not god-like ?' 

" ' Indeed it is. I was presumptuous enough to think 
I knew the Apollo. A cast of the head esteemed to be 
a very good one — my uncle had given me — I placed it 
in my own room ; for a long time it was the first thing 
that the light fell upon, or my eyes opened to in the 
morning ; and in my attempt at crayons, I copied it I 



176 MEMOIR. 

believe in every aspect. It seemed to me therefore 
that in visiting the Apollo I should recognise an old 
acquaintance. No such thing. The cast had given 
me hardly any idea of the statue itself. There was 
certainly no feeling of old acquaintanceship. The brow 
as I stood in front of the god quite overawed me ; in- 
voluntarily I retreated for an instant ; you will smile, 
but I had to muster my courage before I could gaze 
steadily at it.' 

"'1 am not surprised ; the divinity there is in no 
gentle mood. How majestic, and yet how lightly it 
touches the earth ! It is buoyant with god-head.' 

'' ' What strikes me/ continued Mildred, ' as the 
great triumph of the artist, is this very anger of the 
god. It is an anger which, like the arrow he has shot 
from his bow, spends itself entirely upon its victim ; 
there is no recoil, as in human passion, upon the mind 
of him who feels it. There is no jar there. The 
lightning strikes doivn — it tarries not a moment in the 
sky above.'" 

A complete and decisive change in William Smith's 
manner of life was now drawing near. I may mention 
an incident^ — supplied by Mr. Weigall — which must 
have closely preceded it. " Soon before the Corn Laws 
were repealed," writes Mr. Weigall, "William was urged 
by John Stuart Mill to attend a meeting to aid the 
advocates for repeal. The Honourable Mr. Villiers, Mr. 
Mill, and William were the principal speakers, and 
William was beyond doubt the most impressive of them 
all. The Chartists at the time were getting rampant, 
and were in screat force at that meetins:, both men and 



MEMOIR. 177 

women. They had disapproved of almost every wisely 
qualified utterance from Mr. Mill, but when William 
opened his speech with a most happy and harmonious 
sentence, the women about me said — ' Oh what a 
beautiful speaker ! don't disturb him,' and for some 
time they seemed delighted ; but when he began with 
his prescient wisdom to caution them against expecting 
too much from the repeal — that the effect of free-trade 
in corn would be to equalize prices throughout Europe, 
they began to howl him down — William stopped and 
faced the turmoil boldly, and by a very stirring appeal 
to their candour and sense of fair-play secured again 
their good-will, and sat down, the great success of the 
evening. From what I observed on that occasion," adds 
Mr. Weigall, " I felt convinced that could WiUiam have 
overcome his retiring habits he would have won dis- 
tinction in public life." But the retiring habits were 
just then on the point of decisively prevailing. 

I do not know whether it was in 1848 or 1849 that 
my husband acted upon a resolve that must have been 
for some time gathering — the resolve of entirely relin- 
quishing the pursuit of his profession, and devoting 
himself to thinking and writing, in perfect solitude, 
amidst the beautiful scenery of the English lakes. He 
had made no way at the bar ; he was not likely to make 
any — he had no legal connexions ; his heart was not in 
his calling ; his sensitive nature shrank from collision 
with purely personal aims and ambitions, from the 
inevitable turmoil and dust of "Life's loud joyous 
jostling game." He could not, with any hope of suc- 
cess, compete on that arena. And, indeed, in addition 
to other hindrances, his private fortune, seriously 

M 



178 MEMOIR. 

diminished by a loan to an unsuccessful relative (loan 
which he in his refined generosity converted into a 
gift), was no longer adequate to the expenses chambers 
and circuit entailed on the briefless barrister. Then 
there were other influences at work. The " love of 
thinking for its own sake " was growing irresistible, 
and was seconded not only by a " passionate thirst for 
nature and beauty," but by that craving for solitude jf 
which strangely underlay all his social charm, all his 
enjoyment of society, which found such forcible expres- 
sion in his earliest poems, and renders portions of 
/Thorndale' so unutterably pathetic. Circumstances 
and character alike now pointed one way. There is a 
line of Browning's that sums it all up : Thenceforth 

" This man decided not to Live, but Know." 
My husband has often described to me his first plunge 
into the new life. It was made at Bowness (on 
Windermere), a quiet village in those days. There he 
took a small lodging, where the sitting-room opened 
into a garden, and for six months he never spoke to a 
creature, except indeed the few words of necessity to 
his landlady. It comforts one to remember what loving 
letters from sisters and nieces must have varied that 
solitude, as well as what high raptures Nature and 
Thought bestowed upon their devotee. And then the 
winters were always social. Some weeks would be 
spent at the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Weigall, 
where there were clever nephews growing up and two 
much-loved nieces, of whom bis sister has told me he 
was " the idol and the oracle." Some would be plea- 
santly passed at Bath or Brighton, where he had several 
friends. 



MEMOIE. 179 

In 1851 his still, secluded summer life was varied by 
an incident that might have given a different direction 
to all his future. One day the following letter from 
Professor Wilson was delivered to him. Although it 
is marked " strictly private and confidential," there can 
be no indiscretion in giving it now and here : — 

" My dear Str, — ^^Our excellent friend John Blackwood has 
kindly undertaken to put this letter into your hand at Bowness, 
or if not, to find your direction there and forward it to you. 
My health has become very lately so precarious that I have 
been interdicted by my medical adviser from lecturing this ensu- 
ing session, and T can think of no man so qualified meanwhile 
to discharge for me the duties of my Chair as yourself. I am 
therefore most anxious, without delay, to see you here, when I 
will explain fully to you what will be required from you. As 
yet the matter is in my own hand, and I do not fear that, 
though laborious, your duties will be agreeable. You will have 
to give a course of lectures on Moral Philosophy to my class 
during my leave of absence from College. It is absolutely- 
necessary that you should be with me immediately for a day, 
that you may empower me to say that I can depend on you, 
for not a word can I utter publicly or privately without a per- 
fect understanding with you. I shall therefore be looking for 
you in return to this, and be most happy to receive you iu my 
house on your arrival. — Yours, with all esteem, 

" John Wilson. 

" 6 Gloucester Place, Edikburgh, 
Sept. 2Wi, 1851." 

Here seemed an opening every way congenial, for 
William had, as we have seen, a great respect for Scotch 
philosophy, and looked upon the duties of a Chair in a 
Scotch University as most honourable and useful. He 
has told me that he asked for two hours of deliberation, 
and carried the matter out, to be revolved and decided 
in the course of his morning's walk. He decided to 



180 MEMOIR. 

decline. Swayed by some scruples (how needless !) as 
to his fitness, possibly by some other scruples — for he 
was too truthful ever to profess certainty where he was 
conscious of doubt, — swayed, perhaps, by the spell of 
the mountains and the life of unfettered thought, by 
the " spell of the desk," on which already lay the early 
pages of ' Thorndale.' At all events he did decline, nor 
have I ever heard him express a regret that he did so. 
I gain a glimpse of him at this time from a letter of 
Mr. Blackwood's, written to me after I lost him : — " I 
remember going up to the Lakes a great many years 
ago, and finding him all alone at Bowness. It made 
me sad to leave him so solitary, as I felt that his fine 
sensitive nature required some one ever nigh who 
could sympathize with him." 

In the May of 1852 a heavy blow fell upon William 
Smith. His favourite brother Theyre, at that time 
rector of Wymondham, in Norfolk, died suddenly and 
prematurely. Thenceforth Brighton, where Mrs. 
Theyre Smith and her children made their home, be- 
came a centre of tenderer interest to William, and his 
constant winter resort. 

It was in the same year that my husband exchanged 
Windermere for Keswick Lake, the lovely Derwent- 
water, afterwards so dear to us both. There the 
summer solitude was less unbroken than heretofore. 
He was introduced by an early friend, who had left 
the Bar for the Church (the Eev. J. H. Smith, of 
Leamington), to Dr. Lietch, a physician who had been 
led by ill-health to give up practice in a large town, 
and benefit a then comparatively retired district by his 
active and enlightened benevolence. How refreshing 



MEMOIE. 181 

the society of each to the other appears from a letter 
written to me by Dr. Lietch in the October of 1872 : — 

"In 1852, '53, and '54, when your husband was at work on 
' Thorndale,' I saw much of him ; the old felled spruce tree, 
converted into a rude seat on the hiU of Faw Park, is still, or 
was last year, in existence, on which we often sat and talked of 
many things, which when 'Thorndale' was published and sent to 
me'by him, were vividly recalled to me. At that time there was 
something of Clarence in him, something (at times much) of 
Cjrril, occasionally gloomy flashes of Seckendorf, and frequently 
'- the perfect tranquillity with which the poet would admit, on 
some most momentous subjects, his profound ignorance.' The 
' wistful perpetual argument ' which was his life was then 
going on with incessant energy, and was more visible to me 
then than during the last twelve or fifteen years of his life, 
when I saw less of him, and when, indeed, your presence and 
love had silenced many conflicts, and reconciled him to many 
doubts and difficulties in this incomprehensible world." 

Several summers had now been spent at Portinscale, 
a pretty hamlet within a short walk of Dr. and Mrs. 
Lietch's cheerful and kindly home; but in 1856 an 
attractive row of new lodging-houses, and the close 
vicinity of the very excellent library that the town of 
Keswick possesses, induced William Smith to move to 
3 Derwentwater Place. And there, in a light, pleasant, 
three- win do wed room, with peeps of lake and moun- 
tains, 'Thorndale' was getting finished. I transcribe a 
passage from an article on Landor, written in 1853, 
which appears to me interesting as virtually a criticism 
and a justification from the pen of the author of the 
form his own book in great measure assumed : — 

'' The dialogue, as we have intimated, has lost ground 
amongst us as a form of composition, and there are 
other reasons than the caprice of fashion or the love of 



182 MEMOIR. 

change for this general distaste towards it. In an age 
where many books are to be read, we like to come at 
once and rapidly to the gist of the matter ; we wish to 
be led straightway to the conclusion we are finally to 
rest in. We have little time to spare, and cannot 
afford to be bandied about from one speaker to another. 
Why this circuitous path, when we might have gone in 
a direct road from one point to the other 1 Why this 
zigzag, this tacking about, as if we were for ever under 
contrary winds 1 Or let it be the line of beauty itself 
we are illustrating, why these undulations here when 
we have our wicket-gate before us, and might reach it 
by a straight and level path 1 It is still worse when 
there is no wicket-gate to enter, no final conclusion to 
rest in, and a dialogue replete with thought and dis- 
cussion proves to be written with a dramatic rather 
than a didactic purpose. Art for the sake of art, where 
the province is speculative truth, becomes a rather 
questionable matter. Earnest-minded men like to see 
clearly where it is that the author himself is earnest 
and sincere — where it is that he really intends to work 
upon their conviction, and where he is merely exercis- 
ing his ingenuity to give pleasure or create surprise. 

" We note these objections to the dialogue, without, 
however, entirely acquiescing in them. If this form of 
composition may be sometimes wearisome or vexatious 
to the reader, it may be all but necessary to the writer. 
That very incertitude and fluctuation which it admits 
of may be inseparable from minds whose thoughts and 
reflections we would nevertheless willingly listen to. 
Men of this temper could not write at all if they might 
not draw something of a mask or a veil between them- 



MEMOIR. 183 

selves and the public. If it is troublesome to the 
active impatient man to be bandied about, or partially 
mystified by dramatic inventions, it may be infinitely 
to the ease of the writer to adopt some form of com- 
position which does not rigidly compromise him, which 
gives a certain scope for oscillation, which permits him 
to say what seemed truth yesterday, though he already 
suspects that it will not wear exactly the same appear- 
ance to-morrow. There are men who grow bold only 
when they speak in the name or the person of another ; 
they could not utter the ' last word' of the problem if 
in their own persons they must pledge themselves for 
ever to their own solution. They see much of the 
subject, much of its difficulties ; they have something 
withal to say which is worth our hearing ; but they 
doubt if they are in possession of the whole truth. 
Well, we must permit them some device, some fiction, 
some dramatic form which will give them liberty of 
speech, which will sanction half-truths and partial con- 
tradictions. We must not tender the oath and the 
book to all our witnesses. We shall get more truth 
from some by diminishing the weight of responsibility. 
Not to add to all this that there are readers also of 
kindred minds who more frequently find themselves in 
the attitude of unpledged contemplation than of direct 
search for truth, or strenuous advocacy of opinions." 

It was in the August of 1856 that William Smith 
and his future wife first became acquainted. My be- 
loved mother — at that time a complete invalid — a little 
niece of mine who then lived with us, and I, had been 
spending the early summer in Borrowdale, and we too, 
attracted by the new and cheerful row of lodging- 



184 MEMOIR. 

houses, now took up our abode at 3 Derwentwater 
Place. The solitary student, to whom I confess I not 
a little grudged the drawing-room floor, soon sent to 
jDroffer one request — that the little girl would not 
practise her scales, etc., during the morning hours. 
Now and then we used to pass him in our walks, but 
he evidently never so much as saw us. There was 
something quite unusual in the rapt abstraction of his 
air, the floating lightness of his step ; one could not 
help wondering a little who and what he was, but for 
several weeks nothing seemed more entirely unlikely 
than our becoming acquainted. 

The lodging-house that we all occupied was kept by 
a mother and two daughters, who had had a reverse of 
fortune, and to whom this way of life was new. We 
were their first tenants. One of the daughters espe- 
cially was well educated and interesting. To her I gave 
a copy of Grillparzer's ' Sappho,' which I had recently 
translated. I knew she would value it a little for my 
sake, but it never occurred to me that she would take 
it to the recluse in the drawing-room. She did so 
however. Piles of manuscript on his desk had con- 
vinced her that he was " an author,'' and it amused her 
to show him the little production of one of the other 
lodgers ! Perhaps he may have thought that she did 
this at my request, perhaps his kindliness disposed him 
to help by a hint or two some humble literary aspirant 
— for always he was kind— at all events the very next 
day he sent down a message proposing to call, and on 
the 21st of August there came a knock at our sitting- 
room door ; the rapid entrance of a slight figure, some 
spell of simplicity and candour in voice and manner 



MEMOIE. 185 

that at once gave a sense of freedom, and the give-and- 
take of easy talk — beginning with comments on the 
translation in his hand — had already ranged far and wide 
before he rose and, lightly bowing, left the room.^ I 
thought him absolutely unlike any one I had ever met ; 
singularly pleasant in all he said ; even more singularly 
encouraging and gracious in his way of listening. He 
pointed out a passage in the translated play that had 
particularly taken his fancy : — 

" Like to the little noiseless garden snail, 
At once the home and dweller in the home ; 
Still ready — at the very slightest sound — 
Frightened, to draw within itself again ; 
Still turning tender feelers all around, 
And slow to venture forth on surface new ; 
Yet clinging closely if it cling at all, 
And ne'er its hold relaxing — but in death." 

I have transcribed the lines because, in after days, he 
was much given playfully to designate himself " The 
Snail." At the close of this first call I well remember 
that my mother, who had been reclining the while in 
an adjoining room, exclaimed : '' What could you find 
to talk about so long, my dear] one might have 
thought you had known each other for years ! " That 
was it ! To certain natures William Smith, from the 
first moment of meeting, could never seem a stranger ! 
The call was soon repeated, and afterwards he came 



1 One little observation of Ms clung to my memory, returns to it 
very often in my present loneliness — is it too trivial to record ? Dis- 
cussing the building instinct in insect and bird, and their variety of 
dwellings, he said, "The primary condition of the home is that there 
should be two." 



186 MEMOIK. 

three times in the evening, as then my mother was 
able to see him. She was at once impressed with his 
charm : " How could you call him plain, my dear 1 he 
has one of the most delightful countenances I have 
ever seen ! " The dear mother ! herself a sufferer and 
grievously depressed for two years past, it was not 
frequent at that time to hear her express delight ; but 
she was delighted with him ! He afterwards told me 
that just then he was " positively starving for con- 
versation." Hence, perhaps, his effervescence, and 
abandon. On one of these pleasant evenings he 
read us some of ' Sartor Resartus.' He gave me a 
copy of his dramas, and the day we left Keswick (just 
a fortnight after our first meeting) he took me to see 
his favourite view of the Lake ; and we talked with 
the perfect unreserve of those who hold themselves 
little likely ever to meet again. He spoke much of 
his mother, of his happy home with her, his sense of 
isolation since he had lost her ; spoke, also, a little of 
his literary work and religious opinions. I, on my 
side, told him of my family circumstances, in which, 
too, there was sadness and struggle. He frankly said 
he was sorry we were leaving ; I did not say to any 
one, not even to myself, how sorry I was to go ! A 
short note or two were interchanged, then came a 
longer letter telling me of the projected departure for 
Australia of Mr. and Mrs. Weigall and their daughters, 
of whom he was especially fond, and "whose house 
afforded him a refuge to which he occasionally fled 
from this Avandering, solitary life." No wonder that 
he added, " To me this is no little affliction, though 
they write in good spirits ; " and, " I think you will 



MEMOIR. ' ■ 187 

have a little compassion for me." From that time the 
letters grew longer. We planned a meeting at Patter- 
dale in the ensuing spring, and thither he duly went. 
My mother, however, preferred the prospect of an Irish 
tour ; and I, whose chief solicitude then was the state 
of her health, never let her find out till long after the 
touch of disappointment I could not help feeling at 
being unable to keep tryst. 

I will give a few passages from some of these early 
letters which chanced to get preserved when, at his 
earnest request, I burnt the correspondence of the two 
years that intervened between our first and second 
meeting. But the extracts no more show the charm 
of the letters than pulled-out petals the beauty of a 
flower. The first gives a glimpse of his lonely life : — 

" That other book you alluded to we should agree upon, I am 
sure. I think there are passages in Charlotte Bronte's letters 
which beat all the letters I have ever read. And what a 
picture ! what a family group at the little rectory ! . . . How 
thoroughly I could sympathize with some of these letters in 
which she describes her own solitude. How many hours have I 
passed in the evening with the candle put in some corner of the 
room, because my eyes could no longer bear the light, pacing 
up and down, and looking out at the clouds — if fortunately 
there were any clouds to be seen. I have rarely been more 
interested in any book than this." 

Here is his account of ' Thorndale,' which was then 
on the point of publication : — 

" The book — the libretto as I modestly style it — is being 
printed, but it goes on very slowly. It will be only one volume, 
much such a volume as one of the new edition of Professor 
Wilson's works. The title is to be 'Thorndale,' or 'Thornd ale's 
Diary,' — the last title will tell you what sort of work it is. 



188 MEMOIR. 

Not a novel." But a diary admits tlie intermixture of some in- 
cidents with reflection. It closes with a sort of Confession of 
Faith, or view of human progress, which is a sort of continuous 
essay. Some will perhaps read up to this, and then drop the 
book ; others would be satisfied with reading this last part, 
and leaving the rest alone. I am not at all sanguine about its 
success — I never have succeeded in anything, — but one must 
put forth what there is in one's mind, be it much or little. T was 
quite in earnest when I said that I should like to have a lady 
critic at my elbow ; because it is on matters of taste, style, bits 
of verse, etc., that I should particularly want to consult another. 
And as to graver matters, although there are some few men 
whose opinion would be invaluable, they are very few, and quite 
inaccessible. Even on these I would rather have the impressions 
of an intelligent woman than the ' average man,' who is not at 
all impressible, and who is certainly not a whit wiser, or more 
disciplined or trained to thinking." 

The following extract 1 give because the views it 
expresses about India were held by him to the end, 
and put out in the last article he ever wrote : — 

" Yes! this terrible revolt in India must occupy aU thoughts. 
It occupies mine a good deal, but to very little purpose. I see 
that the national revenge of England must have its course. 
But our Indian Empire has never been a great favourite of 
mine. I always looked at it as leading to much benefit, in one 
way or the other, to India itself, but as having little to do with 
the real power and prosperity of England, I myself revolt at 
the scheme, put forth by some writers in the Times, of govern- 
ing India entirely by foreign troops, presuming this were 
possible. If the English power is not really educating Indians, 
so that they will assume one day an independent and permanent 
position amongst the nations, I really see no justification what- 
ever for our conquests." 

It was in the autumn of 1857 that 'Thorndale' 
appeared. On my return from the Irish tour, by which 
my dear mother's health had marvellously benefited, 



MEMOIR. 189 

I well remember going into an Edinburgh library in 
quest of some other book, and having ' Thorndale ' re- 
commended me by the librarian as a very remarkable 
work indeed. Before long the author sent me a copy, 
but I glanced over it merely; I did not read it for 
some months. My way of religious thinking, perhaps 
I should rather say of feeling, led me to shrink from 
any disturbing influence. 

It was never an easy matter to convince William 
Smith of his own success. But if favourable, often 
enthusiastic, and always unbiassed criticism (for he 
belonged to no literary clique or mutual admiration 
society whatever), could afl'ord a test, then ' Thorndale ' 
was decidedly successful. In reference to this I will 
here quote a passage from an article on ' Gravenhurst ' 
by M. Milsand, which appeared some years later in the 
Revue des Deux Mondes : — 

"Je relisais demi^rement un extrait des jugemens 
port^s par la presse sur I'avant-dernier ouvrage de 
M. Smith : Thorndale, ou le Conflit des Opinions. 
J'^tais frapp6 du ton de tous ces jugemens. Les 
appreciations des juges ne s'accordaient pas. ' On 
respire partout,' disait I'un, Mes sentimens 6lev6s du 
gentilhomme et du chr6tien ; ' * I'auteur,' disait I'autre, 
' est un esprit si d6licatement 6quilibr6, qu'il pent peser 
avec une egale justesse les opinions les plus oppos^es; en 
somme, c'est une intelligence singulierement sceptique 
et impartiale.' Mais a travers ces dissidences d'opinions 
on sentait chez les divers critiques la meme impression 
d'attrait, je dirais volontiers d'allechement. Les uns et 
les autres avaient ^t6 6videmment gagn6s ; ils s'accor- 
daient a repr^senter le livre comme une oeuvre qui 



190 MEMOIR. 

demandait a etre savour6e a loisir, qui devait avoir 6t6 
ecrite lentement, ecrite plutot par intermittence et aux 
heures favorables, tant elle renfermait de delicieuses 
pens6es, et tant les pensees avaient la fraicheur, et 
comme le duvet du premier moment." 

In a note of Mr. J. S. Mill's — one of the few to 
whom my liusband wished a copy sent, — ' Thorndale ' 
is spoken of as follows : — 

" I had already read the book with great interest. As is the 
case with everything of yours that I have read, it seemed to me 
full of true thought aptly expressed, and, though not resolving 
many questions, a valuable contribution to the floating elements 
out of which the future moral and intellectual synthesis will 
have to shape itself. I have been much pleased, both on your 
account and that of the book itself, at the decided success it 
has met with." 



My husband's contributions to BlackwoocVs 
were suspended from the April of 1856 to the January 
of 1858, when he wrote a notice of a translation I 
had made of Frey tag's ' Debit and Credit.' His kindly 
encouragement was a support to me in every little 
effort of the sort, and during the ensuing spring our 
letters were very frequent. We told each other all our 
interests, and also all our discouragements and diffi- 
culties. I well recollect his pleasantly contrasting our 
lives in some such words as these : " You are in a good 
roomy boat, rowing hard, but with others around you ; 
whilst I am bobbing up and down on the waves alone, 
with only a life-belt to trust to." Certainly a habit of 
confidence had been very firmly established when, on 
the 14th of July 1858, we met again at Patterdale, and 
yet neither had. quite distinct or correct impressions of 



MEMOIE. 191 

the other. William often told me he could never 
identify the Ii*atterdale companion with the Keswick 
acquaintance. Nor was I prepared for all I found in 
him. By this time I had indeed read ' Thorndale/ and 
had felt its pathos as keenly as its beauty. In the let- 
ters I had been accustomed to receive there was almost 
always an undertone of sadness ; but, to my surprise, 
their writer was cheerful beyond any one I knew, or, at 
least, cheerful with a kind of cheerfulness I had never 
known — something akin to morning sunlight — the 
soaring song of larks — the sportiveness of young wood- 
land creatures. I cannot describe it, but it effaced for 
me all memories of care and disappointment ; it made the 
whole world new. Neither was he any longer inclined to 
be solitary. From the day of our first cordial meeting 
to that of my mother's and my departure we invariably 
took long walks, morning and evening, let the weather 
be what it would. When it was fine, we sought out 
some exquisite shade of birch-trees on high ground, with 
peeps of UUeswater through the branches, or a mossy 
knoll overhanging a " lake-like bend of river," or a 
sequestered grass walk beside a most joyous brook, and 
in such scenes as these he would read to me by the 
hour,^ or I, in my turn, would repeat poetry to him. 
When it was wet we put up with any shelter we could 
find, or talked and laughed very gaily under our 
umbrellas. We were not, however, always gay. The 

1 To those who knew William Smith, it is unnecessary to dwell 
upon the charm of his reading. His voice was singularly flexible, 
varied, and, above all, pathetic. He himself had an idea that he 
succeeded best with comic su.bjects, and many delighted especially in 
hearing him read Dickens, Sterne, etc. Yet I always grudged the 
voice to anything but poetry of a high order. 



192 MEMOIR. 

burden of loneliness was far more painful to him at this 
time than when he first resolved to endure it. In one 
of our early walks I can recall his suddenly bursting 
out, — " I have come to envy any room in which there 
are two chairs ! " And we knew that the days of our 
present happiness were numbered, and we did not then 
imagine that it could by any possibility be rendered 
permanent ! To both the future seemed dark. But 
before the close of those six summer weeks out of their 
happiness a tie had been woven, strong enough to dis- 
pense with any definite hope, to endure through what- 
ever dividing circumstances or differing opinions ; and 
fourteen years later, when the last parting was drawing 
very near, he could still smile as he said, " Patterdale 
was our Idyll." 

Henceforth the constant letters took a different tone. 
But the new letters went to the old address, for, after 
we left, he soon returned to Keswick, and w^as occupied 
in preparing the second edition of ' Thorndale.' In the 
winter he came to Edinburgh for some weeks — came 
after much irresolution, and with many scruples, such 
as will easily be imagined in a nature so fastidiously 
honourable, so purely unselfish as his. On my part 
there were no scruples. In heart and soul, through 
life to death, I knew that I was his. Poverty might 
indeed preclude much, but that nothing could alter, andy 
to be the chosen and the dearest friend of such a one )** ,-,,/' 
as he, seemed to me, and, what is more remarkable, } 

seemed to my most fond and partial mother, a high if 
not altogether a happy destiny. I may here quote 
a passage from a review by him of Gray's Letters 
(written four years before the time I am speaking of), 

h^ kr fc^ t(>^^ fe-U -KvtW^ ^^^SU^SO . 






MEMOIR. 193 

because it was verified in the life of both of us : — 

" How grossly do we err, indeed, when we think that 

youth is the especial or exclusive season of friendship,, 

or even of love ! In the experience of many it has i / 

been found that the want of the heart, the thirst for / / ^X-v 

affection, has been felt far more in manhood than in (J 

early years." 

The six weeks spent in Edinburgh were for him 
social, cheerful weeks. For the first time I saw him in 
society. In a gathering of strangers he would often 
sit silent ; and I noticed, with some amusement, how 
any complimentary allusion to his book would em- 
barrass him, and make him look round for a way of 
escape. Perhaps this may have led to his being called 
a shy man. I never thought the epithet descriptive. 
He chose to retire, was more swift to hear than to speak, 
preferred learning from others to setting them right, 
and was very sensitive to differences of social atmo- 
sphere. But when that atmosphere was congenial, he 
was more completely frank, and more invariably elicited 
frankness from others than sufferers from shyness can.^ 
During his stay in Edinburgh we were of course much 
together, and my dear father now learnt in a measure 
to know him. I say " in a measure," for he, alas ! was 
blind, and could not see the animated face, the smile 
which was as it were the key to the whole man ; so that » 
to those who never saw it I despair of conveying the 
secret of his personal influence. 

^ I recollect Dr. Robert Chambers, at whose house William once 
dined, observing to me, after some humorous lamentations about the 
universality of the name of Smith, that he had " never seen a man 
whom he could so soon love." Dr. Chambers could not have sus- 
pected the interest I felt in hearing him say so. 

N 



194. MEMOIR. 

We could not now consent to long separations ; the 
summers we might at least contrive to spend together, 
and therefore, breaking through the habit of years, 
William Smith forsook his dear Lake country, and in 
the May of 1859 we met at Dunkeld. During this 
summer a fervent protest of his against the explana- 
tion given by Dr. Mansel of ' The Limits of Eeligious 
Thought' appeared in Blachoood's Magazine, and he 
was occupied in writing a review of Sir W. Hamilton's 
' Lectures on Metaphysics.' Our talks now more fre- 
quently took an abstract character. He woidd lead me 
into his own favourite sphere of philosophical thought, 'f 
and, untrained as my mind was, any receptivity it had 
lay in that direction. On other points, too, I could 
not but be insensibly modified by his companionship. \ 
But never was man more tender and reverent to the 
convictions of others ! The following passage, written 
by him in 1861, with regard to the spirit evinced 
by M. Eenan in one of his early works, exactly por- 
trays his own habit of feeling and acting in these 
matters : — 

" No man is more ready to admit that, whatever 
his own opinions may be, those opinions are as nothing 
when weighed against the manifest wants, tendencies, 
and aspirations of mankind. He knows that the atti- 
tude of mind of the incessant inquirer after truth, by 
which the philosopher is supposed to be distinguished, 
can belong only to a few. While claiming freedom for 
such inquirers, he has no expectation and no wish that 
they should take the place of teachers of the multitude. 
They could not give to that multitude their own 
thoughtfulness ; they would give their doubts, but not 



MEMOIR. 195 

that spirit of inquiry which invests doubt itself with 
sacredness." . . . And again : — 

"Not his the presumption that would project his 

own mind as a type for all others He would 

not intentionally weaken the foundation on which the 
morality of more simple-minded or more imaginative 
men than himself is seen to rest ; but the gradual per- 
meating influence of a truth once spoken he has no 
wish, no power to arrest. This he believes must be 
ultimately beneficent." 

During the four months spent at Dunkeld we saw 
more of each other than at Patterdale ; for now, in 
addition to the two long walks, the evenings were 
always spent together; and when we parted, on the 
1 6th of September, he soon to make his way back to 
Keswick, — of all the improbabilities that occupied our 
minds none were so out of the question as our being 
separated for long. There was an autumn meeting 
at Keswick, a winter meeting in London, and the 
3d of May 1860 found him and me and my dear 
mother comfortably installed as joint-tenants of Mount 
Hazel, a farm-house in Carnarvonshire, not far from 
the coast. 

For some months past William's mind had been 
occupied with the idea of another book, and on one of 
those May-days I was called into his study to listen to 
the introductory chapter of ' Gravenhurst.' But although 
he only wrote two short papers for the Magazine, the 
book did not get on very fast during the happy time 
spent, first at Mount Hazel, and then at Llanberris. 
Our mountain walks were so long, and we were so 
much together. Nothing, indeed, was materially 



196 MEMOIR, 

changed iu our outward position, but obstacles weighed 
less upon our spirits than they had done at Dunkeld ; 
we succeeded better, at all events, in pushing them out 
of sight ; and the nearly five months of constant com- 
panionship had brought about a still more complete 
sympathy. For under his influence I could not but 
grow a little wiser and worthier. Parting was a great 
pain, but this time I think he felt it even more than I ! 
A week later we met at the house of a dear friend, and 
by the middle of December — I hardly know how — we 
discovered that, as he phrased it, " the impossible had 
become possible," and that we must "live and work 
together." I will give two grave passages from the 
pile of joyous letters between the 14th of December 
and our marriage : — 

" And so my dear bird was a Httle serious, a httle sad. We 
should both be very shallow people if we were not a little 
serious. I make very serious vows to myself. I do hope that 
you shall never have cause for any other sadness than what 
comes inevitably to us all. I will ' love her, comfort her, and 
honour her.' I should often repeat to myself those lines — 

* No more companionless 
Although he trod the path of high intent,' 

if I did not feel that there was a certain presumption in my 
talking of ' the paths of high intent.' Yet, although with little 
success, and very little power, I have always put before myself 
a high aim in my studies and my writings. And I should like 
to die stiU striving, though I get no higher than to strive," . . . 

And this, in answer to words of mine disclaiming 
any presumptuous wish to change " the nature of my 
thinker's thoughts :" — 

"Since I wrote, another letter came from Edinburgh, for 



MEMOIR. 197 

wliicli I ought to thank you still more. It gave me re-assur- 
ance that my dear bird and I shall always be en rapport. 

' I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honour more,' — 

so runs some knightly rhyme. I, who am no knight, must sub- 
stitute the word truth for honour, though it mars the verse." 

In the February of 1861 I left Edinburgh, taking 
with me, for my only portion, my parents' blessing. 
We were married on the 5th of March, at St. John's 
Church, Notting Hill, from the house of a most dear 
friend, the one, perhaps, to whose noble and tender 
nature the kindred nature of my husband most entirely 
responded. Other friends, friends of childhood, of 
girlhood, friends of a lifetime, gathered round us. 
They almost all came from a distance, and many of 
them met again on this occasion who had not met for 
years. One of them — my sister in heart — described ff 
thus the impression William made upon her : — " Lucy, j 
I should like to teU him everything that ever happened V^ 
me ! " All were at once completely at home with him. 
It was a happy beginning of a great happiness ! 

We spent some weeks at Hastings and at Brighton ; 
then settled ourselves for the summer at Tent Cottage 
(near Coniston), — a green nest, with tall trees round, 
that my beloved mother shared with us. There is a 
line of my husband's that often recurs to my mind : — 

" It takes so little to make Earth a Heaven." 

Of worldly goods, so very little ! Were I to name the 
income that procured for us the ideal of both I should 
excite in some a smile of incredulity. But it is literally 
true that from first to last we were never conscious of a 



198 MEMOIE. 

privation — never perturbed by care. Whatever our in- 
come, we always contrived to have it in advance, and it 
was one of the peculiarities of my husband's character to 
be equally prudent and generous, a combination that 
much in my former life had taught me to prize. But 
indeed all that life now seemed to me requisite training 
for such "measureless content" as mine. I had had 
perplexity enough to enhance the rest of reliance on a 
perfectly sound judgment; buffeting enough to make 
me habitually alive to a justice and tenderness that 
never failed. 

It was during this summer that he wrote down, on 
the inside of an old envelope, the following lines — 
an answer, I imagine, to some conventional prompting 
of which I must have been guilty. They are so char- 
acteristic that I give them : — 

" Oh vex me not witli needless cry / 

Of what the world may think or claim ; 
Let the sweet life pass sweetly by 

The same, the same, and every day the same. 

Thee, Nature, Thought — that burns in me 

A living and consuming flame — 
These must suffice ; let the life be 

The same, the same, and evermore the same. 

Here find I taskwork, here society — 

Thou art my gold, thou art my fame ; 
Let the sweet life pass sweetly by. 

The same, the same, and every day the same." 

The "sweet life" was not disturbed during the 
remainder of the year, but we changed its scene to 
Keswick — to the house where we had first met five 
years before, — and then to Brighton. During the 



MEMOIE. 199 

summer William had written several articles, — one for 
the British Quarterly (of which his friend Dr. Yaughan 
was then editor), on the poems of Mrs. Browning — 
poems so dear to us both that her death that summer 
seemed to bring personal loss and pain. While the 
winter sped on at Brighton, ' Gravenhurst' grew rapidly. 
William wrote it undisturbed by my presence — a great 
triumph to me — I sitting the while at another table 
writing too. For through the kindness of Mr. Strahan 
— most enterprising and liberal of publishers — I had 
for several years a good deal of translation to do. This 
was one of the finishing touches to the completeness of 
our life. Not to speak of my pleasure in contributing 
to our income, I delighted in compulsory occupation, 
and to see me busy over my manuscript gave my hus- 
band a more comfortable sense of security from casual 
remarks than he would have had if I had only been 
working or reading. Then, when the pen was thrown 
down, both enjoyed the walk all the more thoroughly, 
the more childishly — in both there was much of the 
child. 

'"" In the May of 1862 * Gravenhurst' was published, and 
we went to Switzerland for five months, dividing the 
time between Bex, Zermatt, Sixt, Chamounix, and 
Unterseen. It was our custom to settle down quietly 
at one place after another, to get its loveliness by heart, 
and to be free from that ruffling of equanimity bad 
weather may entail on the rapid tourist. Our fortnight 
at Zermatt stands out very prominently in my memory. 
The keen air and the kind of scenery exhilarated my 
husband to the utmost. In a manuscript book of his 
I find, very hastily jotted down : — " Two short, long 



200 MEMOIR. 

weeks and all my future — such is your share, Zermatt, 
of my life. Nowhere the torrents so grand, the snow- 
hills more beautifully set. I cannot describe the scene 
on the Gorner Grat — but I recur to it and keep it 
alive. All pleasure — flowers, the English hare-bell, looks 
up from my ankle, the white Pinguicula (as if dropt 
from the skies upon its stalk, on which it rests rather 
than grows), shy as the violet and more delicate. You 
look up from the flower and down into the ravine. I 
tremble as I look below — one false step and all the 
beauty is gone for ever, gone for me ! And see, the 
torrent-stream is so safe, just here is its low bed 
scooped in the solid rock; it is so distant, as to seem 
quite silent. And then the village, and the cows, and 
the goats, and the church, and the bells ; a great deal 
of the praying here seems done by the bells — and not 
badly." 

What rapturous memories of our long walks those 
few words waken ! At Zermatt, too, we made an in- 
teresting and enduring friendship. We were there 
early in June, and the Hotel du Mont Cervin had only 
two other inmates, a young husband and wife, and 
their sweet child of three. The visitors' book gave 
their names ; they were New-Englanders. We never 
thought it worth while to record ours, and hence in the 
course of two or three days Mr. Loomis, who discerned 
something remarkable about the man, asked William 
what his was. " The commonest of all English names, 
— William Smith." " Yes ; but I like it for the sake 
of a favourite author." And then I broke in, inquiring, 
with a strong presentiment what the answer would be, 
which of the numberless Smiths he alluded to 1 " The 



MEMOIE. 201 

author of * Thomdale.' " It was a great pleasure to 
me to say, " This is he." Mr. Loomis had with him 
the American edition of the book, which my husband 
saw with interest. So began a friendship and corre- 
spondence that were kept up to the last. 

We had had some vague idea of spending the winter in 
Switzerland, but the illness of my dear father recalled us. 
The winter was spent at Weston-super-Mare, where we 
knew no one — where, from the 14th of October to the 
17th of February we only spoke to each other; and 
never were we more cheerful than under these circum- 
stances. The place itself had not much interest — 
country and sea were alike tame; but the beautiful 
sunsets in front of our large window were a constant 
source of pleasure, and we had Switzerland to re- 
member. But, indeed, however ecstatic my husband's 
enjoyment of Swiss glories, it was far less exceptional 
than his unfailing delight in the familiar shows of earth 
and sky. It never was more true than of him that 

"The poet hath the child's sight in his breast, ^ . 

And sees all new. What oftenest he has viewed, * j 
He views with the first glory. ''^ 

As usual, during these peaceful months William was 
thoroughly occupied, not only in writing for the Maga- 
zine, but with psychological subjects. In the manuscript 
book that at that time lay upon his desk, I find much 
jotted down under the head of ' Knowing and Feeling.' 
But the one thing in him that I regretted was his 
habit of writing so many of his thoughts illegibly, even 
to himself. He would often deplore his own way of 
working, — extracts made, line of argument traced out, 



202 MEMOIR. 

to be referred to hereafter, and when wanted unde- 
cipherable ! When a new MS. book was begun, there 
would be resolves to do better ; but habit was too 
strong, the pen flew too fast, the writing (in his letters 
so delicate and clear) baflled the writer's own patience. 

In the spring of 1863, after a little round of visits — 
a thing unprecedented with us— we found ourselves 
again in the neighbourhood of Coniston, attracted 
thither mainly by friends with whom, during our stay 
at Tent Cottage, we had entered into cordial relations, 
and whom we had much enjoyed meeting during our 
Swiss tour. One of these friends was an especially 
congenial companion to my husband, and his corre- 
spondent to the end. Whenever he had received any 
new or vivid delight from art or nature, or whenever a 
political or a religious movement had excited in him 
more than usual interest, I always knew that the 
sheets of note-paper I saw spread out on the little desk 
were destined for Miss Eigbye. She will not, I know, 
object to my quoting here her earliest impression of 
him : — 

" I like to recall the first time I saw him, and the 
feeling that his joyous, radiant expression awakened in 
me — something of surprise, and wonder, and pleasure. 
I remember distinctly recognising that it was some- ! 
thing I had never seen before." ' 

During the course of this summer there fell upon me 
an irreparable blow, — the death within one week of 
both beloved parents. But my husband's presence made 
anguish (as I now understand the word) impossible. 
A few days before her sudden seizure, my mother had 
said to me, " Thank God, my darling, that when I am 



MEMOIR. 203 

in my grave you will have one to love you as I do ! " 
She, better than any one, would have understood how, 
having all in him, even her loss could not darken life. 
My joy henceforth lacked the complete reflection it 
found from her sympathy, but it was " fulness of joy " 
still. More "than ever my companion, more than ever 
tender — my husband seemed resolved that my nature 
should know no want. Part of the ensuing winter was 
spent in Edinburgh amid true friends ; the remainder 
at Brighton. 

The summer of 1864 was memorable to us, as being 
the first we spent at a house which became almost a 
home; I refer to Newton Place, in Borrowdale. It 
was a house pleasantly planned, with large windows, 
and rooms lofty in proportion to their size, — a house 
into which breeze and sunlight streamed in from the 
four quarters ; and it was pleasantly situated, with the 
lake and Skiddaw in front, on either side bold wooded 
crags or soft grassy hills, and between us and the latter 
green meadows, with a river gliding silently through. 
It was a pleasant coincidence that this house had been 
somewhat coveted by me eight years before, when my 
mother and I occupied it for a few weeks ; and that 
William, calling upon some friends who tenanted it, 
had said to himself that the drawing-room would make 
him a delightful study. And now we shared it. We 
were able to secure it to ourselves from April to 
December, and we had rooms to which we could 
welcome friends. But I will vary my chronicle of our 
outwardly unbroken life, by an extract from his manu- 
script-book of the year, suggested evidently by the 
quiet stream we so often watched together : — 



204 MEMOIR. 

'' The Eiver. 

" Beauty here does not owe milch to utility. Not 
many objects more beautiful or more useful, but the 
beauty and utility seem very distinct. The river to a 
very thirsty man has lost its beauty ; and the farmer, 
who thinks more intensely than any of us of irrigation, 
sees very little of its charm of beauty. This lies in its 
motion, in its light, in its endless variety, and that 
curve which displays more of these, and suggests life 
and choice of movement." 



" All beautiful things grow more beautiful by looking 
long at them. There is the charm of novelty ; there 
is also the growing charm of persistency and repeti- 
tion ; the eye feeds. Indeed, dwell on any object, and 
the sentiment it is calculated to inspire augments so 
long as attention is unfatigued." 

" See how the wind gives a ripple this way, while 
the stream is that way. Where the river bends, and 
one part is exposed to the wind and the other not, you 
would say that the stream is flowing in one direction 
here, and there in another direction. We must explain 
its apparent contradiction. Like noble minds, it leaves 
its inconsistencies to the candour or the mistake of others." 



" This gnat upon the surface, it does not seem to me 
a life, but a fragment of life — a joy — a motion, nothing 
more." 

" The river by its inundation obliterates itself ; by 
overflowing becomes mere marsh. I pray that my river 
here will keep its bounds, and not strive to be a lake." 

" There is a sodden leaf that cannot float upon the 



MEMOIR. 205 

surface, and yet has not weight enough to rest upon 
the ground. It moves always, but is always drawn 
along the lottom of- the stream. That is its progress." 

" How endless are the charms of a river ! It has 
ceaseless motion, yet it suggests repose ; these blurred 
shadows of the bank and trees are stationary, though 
the water is ever flowing. Motion and shadow ; life 
and the dream of life ; and the whence and the whither!' 



" The moss just under the stream is kept moist by 
the water, and yet shines in the sun. How resplendent 
a green ! but where I see nothing but the bare stones, 
I find the most fascinating spectacle. There the river 
of light is flowing. On the surface the water ripples, 
ripples in the light ; so light and shadow course each 
other in mimic flow along the bottom of the stream. 
I watch that under-stream that is no stream, and think 
of what thought may be." 

" This stick half in the water, crooked to the eye, 
I take it out, it is straight. Delusion that the child 
detects, and that to the man has become an additional 
knowledge by his explanation of it. But the man 
himself, can he take himself out of the element through 
which he sees himself 1 " 

The winter of 1864-65 was outwardly more varied 
than was usual with us. It included a stay of two 
months at Llandudno, in North Wales, a short visit to 
Bath, where my husband had an old and intimate friend 
and correspondent, and several weeks at Brighton ; and 
then, after a fortnight in London, we set out early in 
May for Svfitzerland, and saw Lucerne and enchanting 
Engelberg in their fresh beauty, and had Pensions to 



206 MEMOIR. 

ourselves. Our other happy resting-places were Grin- 
del wald, Unterseen, Champ^ry, Bex, La Comballaz. 
One week too was given to Chamounix, for which 
"William had an especial affection. His deepest im- 
pressions of sublimity had been received there twenty 
years before, renewed in 1862 ; his constant nature 
preferred re-visiting it to exploring new scenes. Never 
shall I forget his lying on the ground on our return 
from the Chapeau one glorious August day, gazing long 
and silently, absorbed in wonder and worship, at what 
he had called " the sculpture of landscape," — " the great 
hills built up, from their green base to their snowy 
summits, with rock, and glacier, and pine forests," — 
" leading beyond this earth." Then suddenly starting 
from his trance of rapture he said, " Now, I don't want 
to see that again ! " He had indeed seen it this last 
time in fullest perfection. 

We spent five months in Switzerland. They were 
fraught with delight ; and yet there were days — days 
of reaction after vivid enjoyment — when I could plainly 
see that my husband missed the steady occupation, the 
studious routine of our English summers. Had his life 
been prolonged, I do not think we should ever have 
become tourists again. During the ensuing years, re- 
membering his own delight in Italy, and kindly anxious 
to give me every possible pleasure, he would often ask 
me whether I really wished very much to go there ; 
because, if so, the effort would be made. But I had 
always a doubt as to such a journey being the best 
thing for him. I dared not wish it. 

I will transcribe a few of the ' Scraps of Verse 
from a Tourist's Note-book,' which were written 



MEMOIR. 207 

during our second Swiss summer, and published in the 
Magazine : — 

' ' The lightest, brightest cloud that floats 
In the azure, can but throw 
Some kind of shadow, dark or faint, 
On whatever lies below." 

For me, thank God ! although I lowly lie, 
I lie where earth looks straightway to the sky ; 
On me, remote alike from king and clown, 
No fellow-atom flings his shadow down. 

No shadow ? — none ? — Think; look again ! 
An hour ago that huge and rocky hill 

Stood bare, unsightly ; all in vain 
Did mid-day light each rent and chasm fill. 
It waited for the cloud. The shadow came. 
Rested or moved upon its brow 
And, lo ! it softens into beauty now — 
Blooms like a flower. With us 'tis much the same, — 
From man to man, as the deep shadows roll. 
Breaks forth the beauty of the human soul." 



" High rise the mountains, higher rise 

The clouds ; the mimic mountain still, 
The cloud, the cloud, say what we wiU, 

Keeps full possession of our skies. 
Let cloud be cloud, my friend ; we know the wind 

Shapes and re-shapes, and floats the glory on ; 
Glory or gloom it floats, but leaves behind 

The stable mountain, open to the sun. 
Let cloud be cloud — unreal as the space 

It traverses ; earth can be earth, yet rise 
Into the region of God's dwelling-place. 

If light and love are what we call his skies." 



The stream flows on, it wearies never, 

Whilst T, who do but watch its flow, 
I weary oft. ' Ah, not for ever ! 



208 MEMOIR. 

Soon other eyes ' — I know, I know, 
I too repeat my ' Not for ever,' 

And waking to that thought I start, 
And find my weariness depart." 



I pluck the flower, one moment to behold 
Its treasury of purple and of gold ; 
The blossom, and a nest of buds around, 
Ruthless I pluck, and fling them on the ground. 

Plucked because fair, then flung to death away ! 
I might have stooped and looked, and had a blameless joy. 

Nature's great prodigality, you say, 

E'en for man's wantonness provides. 

It may be so, but still with me at)ides 
A sense of shame that I could so destroy." 



" The stream to the tree — I shine, you shade. 
And so the beauty of the world is made." 

Our second Swiss tour, like our first, was succeeded 
by several months of exclusively tUe-a-Ute life at 
Weston-super-Mare, and I was soon happily convinced 
that the spell of the desk had in no way been weakened 
by our wanderings. William wrote a long ' Eeview of 
J, S. Mill's Examination of Sir William Hamilton's 
Philosophy,' confining himself chiefly to that " central 
position in which the great question is discussed of the 
nature and origin of our knowledge of the external 
world." To those who know his writings it is needless 
to indicate the side he took in the controversy. He 
" selected to be totally wrong" (according to Mr. Mill) 
" with Sir William Hamilton rather than exchange our 
real world of matter and motion, of substance and 
force, for permanent possibilities of sensation attached 
to nothing at all — for mere thoughts of sensations, — a 



MEMOIR. 209 

dreary and bewildering idealism." My husband's 
mind was at this time constantly engaged with the 
problems the book in question treats of, but a remark 
he made with regard to Sir W. Hamilton — " He loved 
thinking over the book better than thinking over the pen' — 
was just then applicable to himself. The manuscript 
book grew full, but during our stay at Weston-super- 
Mare nothing else was written. We left it with tender 
regret, as we always did any place where we had been 
quite alone — left it for an interval of social life in Edin- 
burgh, and in the February of 1866 found ourselves 
once more at Newton Place. During the eleven 
months that we spent there we had very frequently 
guests — dear young nieces, dear old friends — of mine 
originally, but now of his, for he adopted them heartily, 
and not any of them, I know well, have forgotten or 
will forget the simple cordiality of his welcome. It is 
true that the prospect of any interruption to our 
duality was sometimes perturbing to the student, who 
loved his regular work and his habitual ways ; true that 
when those even we best loved left and we returned to 
each other, I heard the words that above all words 
made my heart leap with joy : — " Now I have my ideal 
of life." But none came to us who were not friends 
indeed, we had no surface acquaintance, no conventional 
sociality, and at the close of every visit we received we 
found ourselves enriched by pleasant memories and 
enlarged interests. Early in 1867 we made our winter 
flight to Brighton, and for the summer fixed ourselves 
at Barmouth, in North Wales — a place to which my 
husband had never before been, though he had chosen 
it for the scene of one of the episodes in ' Thorndale.' 
o 



210 MEMOIR. 

We had a snug little cottage to ourselves, perched 
just above the estuary, on the other side of which rose 
the range of Cader Idris. The place suited my hus- 
band's health, and as usual we were fortunate in a 
landlady, whose kindliness and care for us gave a sense 
of comfort and security very precious to both. We 
should have been, I believe, unduly pained by an 
opposite experience, but during our married life we 
never encountered it. My husband's unvarying con- 
sideration for the claims and the feelings of all brought 
into contact with him, as well as his self-helpfulness 
and punctuality, made him the most popular of lodgers. 
Looking over my diaries, whatever year I take up 
seems to have been the happiest ! William was much 
occupied, I remember, this particular summer with 
scientific subjects. One of the papers that he wrote 
for the Magazine was a review of a work of fimile 
Saigey's, treating of the ' Unity of Natural Phenomena.' 
I think the closing paragraphs will interest some who 
read these pages : — 

" What if the movements of suns and planets, about 
which so many theories have been devised, should at 
last be studied in the movements of the molecule 1 
The movements of suns and systems may be but results 
or examples of those two movements of rotation and 
translation with which we found it necessary to endow 
every atom from the commencement. 

" Need we add that we have still to ask how atoms 
came to be endowed with these movements, and were 
brought into all these rhythms or harmonies ? Need 
we add that our last and boldest generalizations only 
make the necessity more glaring to supplement the 



MEMOIE. 211 

atom and its movement with the great idea of Intelli- 
gential Power 1 

" God, and the atom, and the soul of man, 
Something we seem to know of all the three — 
Something — and only — always — of the Three ! " 

We were seven months at Barmouth. What memo- 
ries arise of grave and tender talk during sunset strolls 
along the quiet sands, while the distant Carnarvon- 
shire mountains stood out lilac against a " daffodil 
sky;" of glad morning rambles, after morning work, 
over hills gorgeous with furze and heather ; of rapid 
pacing up and down the bridge, watching the flowing 
or the ebbing rush of the tide ! We had a good many- 
brief visits from different friends during the summer ; 
but we were much alone too. The winter found us in 
Edinburgh. 

During our stay there one of our peculiar interests 
lay in attending together, every Sunday morning, a 
rather singular service held by a Mr. Cranbrook in the 
Hopetoun Eooms. Mr. Cranbrook had been originally, 
I believe, an Independent minister, but at the time I 
speak of he had seceded from that body. We never 
knew his history with exactness, but heard of him as 
an earnest thinker, following at any cost after what he 
deemed truth. He was then evidently in ill-health, 
and had the wistful look of one " led by the Spirit" into 
a desert. His congregation was small ; but loving 
hands always placed flowers on each side of the desk 
before him. His sermons were generally critical ; but 
in his prayers the emotional nature of the man came 
out. We found the contrast between the cold ana- 
lytical tone of his preaching and the passionate cry of 



212 MEMOIR. 

his heart deeply pathetic, and came away with much 
to talk over during our Sunday morning walk. To me 
it was always an unspeakable interest to go with my 
husband to a place of worship. I never saw there a 
demeanour quite the same as his, — he sat so still, there 
was such reverent attention in his fixed glance. It 
was not often that I had this experience ; compromises 
and conformity to custom formed no part of his re- 
ligion ; but he laid down no rule for others ; could 
understand how in them memories and affections might 
hold together old habits and changed opinions ; never 
charged their intellectual inconsistency with dishonesty. 
When I returned from church, he liked me to tell him 
what I had heard, and if a deepened sense of things 
unseen and a desire to live more in accordance with 
the highest standard be the best results of religious 
teaching, then it was his comments that most helped 
me. I, on my side, reverenced the law of his higher 
nature, unflinchingly obeyed and rewarded openly by a 
transparent simplicity, a reality in look, and speech, and 
gesture, that all felt the influence of, and which his 
venerable friend Dr. Brabant once referred to in these 
words : — " When I am with your husband I feel in the 
presence of absolute truth." 

In the January of 1868 we left Edinburgh for our 
dear Newton Place, and some of our kind friends 
thought it an injudicious move. But even in winter 
we enjoyed it thoroughly. Perhaps never more than 
then, when mighty winds swooping down from Scaw- 
fell tossed and twisted our protecting trees and shook 
the walls of our dwelling as they passed us by, or 
when heavy rains had turned our meadows into a lake, 



MEMOIR. 213 

and flooded roads shut us most completely in. To the 
happy, storm is as exhilarating as sunshine, and I used 
to liken our secluded life to a full glass of champagne, 
into which — drop the merest trifle, it effervesces anew. 
A book, a magazine, sent by a friend, a parcel from 
the London library, the arrival of proof to correct, etc., 
still more, any natural spectacle — northern lights, frost- 
work, falling snow — anything, everything, was pleasure- 
able excitement. On such winter evenings my hus- 
band would often take me from room to room of our 
dwelling " to show me " the moon, or moon-lit clouds, 
or the starlight splendour in different parts of the sky. 
And after standing long in silence together gazing at 
the silent stars, he would turn from their oppressive 
magnificence with such words as these : — " Love must 
be better than Hate in all worlds ! " So much was 
certain. While thus alone, from the first hour of rising 
— when I could hear him "singing, dancing to him- 
self" — to the winding up of our evening by some game 
of chess or cards, all was conscious enjoyment. I can- 
not convey to those who did not know him, or knew 
him- but slightly, the variety of his playfulness, the 
delicate humour that gave charm and freshness to 
" every day's most quiet need by sun and candle-light." 
I suppose it required a heart like his, " moored to some- 
thing ineffable, supreme," and an entire absence from 
personal anxieties, enmities, ambitions. I only know 
that this " spirit of joy" that he felt and diffused was, 
as far as my experience goes, unique, and no sketch of 
his character that did not lay stress upon it could be 
in any degree complete. 

This year, 1868 — our * Annus Mirabilis ' as he some- 



214 . MEMOIR. 

times called it — was the most social of all our years. 
For several months we had a succession of dear friends, 
some of them eminently congenial companions to 
my husband; and between their coming and going, 
intervals of our oivn life. William was well and strong; 
the seasons were all unusually fine; in autumn the 
hills were one sheet of golden bracken, such as we 
never saw before or sin'ce ; the leaves hung later on his 
beloved birch-trees, and our mountain walks were 
longer than usual. 

It was in the February of 1869, when we were back 
again at Brighton, that, for the first time, I saw my 
husband really ill. True, it was only, as we supposed, 
an attack of influenza, nor did he once allow it to 
interfere with his rising at the usual hour and walking 
out on all dry days. But an entry in my diary tells 
that he was "suddenly seized with a shivering-fit, of 
course succeeded by fever and such prostration of 
energy as I had never witnessed in him. The day 
passed, and he did not once sit at the dear, familiar 
little desk; dozed off over the book in his hand, 
always, however, rousing himself to give the sweetest 
smile and say some sweet words." It was the first 
draught of the bitter cup, but this time it passed away, 
and before a fortnight was over no trace of illness 
seemed left ; the step, was as elastic, the eye as bright 
as before. 

We had debated with ourselves whether to spend 
the following summer in Derbyshire or Cornwall ; but 
I had a longing to see the Atlantic break on the Bude 
shore, having read of the waves rising there to an un- 
usual height, and my husband, to whose more occupied 



MEMOIR. 215 

mind place was less important, allowed my preference 
to prevail. It was a long journey to take, to a spot 
quite unknown to us, where, of course, we should not 
have a single acquaintance. I think I never set out in 
a greater ferment of delight than on that bright April 
day ! But Bude is a place that has its wrong side, " a 
bare, sandy common, and an ugly canal ; " and my hus- 
band's first impression of it, given in a letter to a dear 
niece, was, " that a more dreary region could not be 
discovered in all England," and that, "had he fallen 
upon it alone, he should have been off like a shot the 
next morning." However, a little accident that befell 
me immediately on my arrival (the falling of a sashless 
window on my hands) so distressed him as to " make 
it impossible to growl at the place," and its own 
peculiar charm soon asserted itself. Later on he 
writes to the same niece : — " These ground-swells of 
the Atlantic will spoil me for any other seas. On the 
coast of Sussex and Kent I have seen grand seas, but 
I was blinded or blown away in the attempt to look at 
them, and the waves were generally dark and turbid. 
On this coast I have seen waves as lustrous and clear 
as the waters of. the Lake of Geneva rising in all the 
grand forms of a storm." 

Our small abode at Bude was not so quiet as we 
could have wished, but William at once set about 
writing on a subject that had long been occupying his 
mind : * Knowing and Feeling.' The illusion that, as 
I take up one pocket-book after another, makes the 
year therein recorded seem of all our years the best, 
comes over me strongly as I dwell on our Bude life. 
The bold cliffs, where always there was a renovating 



216 MEMOIR. 

breeze, short flower-filled turf for our feet, and a 
glorious semicircle of sea below us, where, as we stood 
or sat near the edge, great gulls would come soaring 
up from the shore, not seeing us till close by, then 
calmly slant ofi" — their wide wings foam- white in the 
sunshine ; or whence we watched the ravens that had 
their nests in the rocks below, tumble fantastically in 
the air, — how these things delighted him ! The peaceful 
days were all made up of thinking, writing, and of four 
short rambles on common or shore. He took no long 
walks, felt no inclination for them -, but we heard that 
the air of the place often disposed to lassitude, and our 
landlady — struck at first, as indeed strangers usually 
were, with his look of fragility — told me she and her 
neighbours noticed a marked improvement as the weeks 
went on. The summer brought us a dear young niece ; 
and General and Mrs. Cotton, whose presence in Bor- 
rowdale had been a delight the previous summer, now 
spent three weeks at Bude. William, very busily en- 
gaged with his own thoughts and pen, only joined in 
one excursion — that to Tintagel. In a letter to his 
niece Clara he says : — 

" I was very glad that I went. It was a kind of scenery 
somewhat novel to me. At Tintagel you stand on a rock — 
500 feet above the level of the sea — which juts out, and enables 
you to command a magnificent view of both sides of this beau- 
tiful coast. What makes the chief charm of the view are the 
grand, isolated rocks that rise at some little distance from the 
shore out of the blue sea. These assume various shapes, and 
all beautiful. But perhaps the greatest novelty at Tintagel 
were the caves. In one of these the greenest of ferns had 
growTi over the roof in the most delectable way, and the colour 
of the rocks was to me quite surprising — all the colours of the 



MEMOIE. 217 

richest marbles — dark red, green, yellow, but a sort of dull, 
deep purple being the prevailing tint. In another cave it was 
not the colours one admired, but the admirable proportions, the 
lofty roof, the form of the whole. In this second cave we saw 
a spectacle I shall never forget. The cave led through to the 
ocean. It was the calmest and brightest of days, but there was 
a ground swell, and the magnificence of the waves as they filled 
for a moment the whole entrance to the cave, then dashed up 
the spray to the roof, was something to remember for ever." 

From the 10th of September to the 5th of January 
we were quite alone, and the little desk was soon per- 
manently installed in the joint sitting-room. As usual, 
I have no outward events to record. A wonderfully 
high tide had been predicted for the 6th of October, 
such as would lay half Bude partially under water ; but 
there was no wind that night, and we watched the 
calm sea flow in — the village lights reflected in its 
perfect stillness — flow in and turn, having spread no 
further than at the September spring-tides. I confess 
I was disappointed ; but William, who never had any 
craving for the abnormal, was heartily glad that the 
low-lying houses should escape the anticipated discom- 
fort. One day we saw the rocket apparatus used, but 
only in the way of practice. This was a novel sight to 
both, and a great interest. The sunsets grew finer 
as autumn advanced, and we invariably went out to 
watch them. Even in December we could sit in the 
shelter of the rocks without any fear of chill. The 
morning and evening hours were occupied by the pro- 
jected treatise on 'Psychology;' I used sometimes to 
doubt whether the critic would ever let the author 
finish it ! But however intent my husband might be 
on this or other abstruse subjects, he was never ren- 



218 MEMOIR. 

dered absent-minded, never so mucli as let the fire go 
out while he was writing, and the moment the pen was 
laid down the brow was all smoothness, the eye all 
light, and he as ready to listen to any triviality his 
companion might have to impart as to share his own 
trains of thought with her. 

We left Bude, as I have said, early in January, left 
it for Bath, and there spent three weeks under the roof 
of my husband's old and true friend, Mrs. Haughton. 
In my pocket-book for this year he wrote, "A new 
decade ; the old wish : may it be a repetition of the 
last ! " There had been several entries of the kind : 
" May we have no new years, only the old ones back 
again ; " " May the new year be happy as the old," etc. 
As we purposed spending the following spring and 
summer in the North, at our dear Newton Place, we 
fixed upon Edinburgh for the few intervenmg winter 
weeks. Again in February he had for three days a 
very sharp attack of illness, of cold merely, as we 
thought. Yet, looking back, I see too plainly the 
significance of one night of fever and breathlessness, 
that made him fear he was going to be asthmatic like 
his father, and after which he rose looking fearfully ill, 
though in a few hours that appearance passed ofi". 
Looking back, I notice too a greater reluctance to go 
into society, but at the time there were many ways of 
accounting for this ; one, that I was greatly occupied 
with a dearly-loved invalid friend, and spent all my 
evenings with her. 

March found us once more at Newton Place. If these 
happy records be found monotonous, they are soon about 
to close. This year my husband published in the Con- 



MEMOIE. 219 

temi)orary two articles on ' Knowing and Feeling/ and 
wrote two papers for Blackwood's Magazine. One of 
these was upon Dr. Noah Porter's work on the 'Human 
Intellect/ for which he had, and expressed, high appre- 
ciation, and which generally lay upon his writing-table. 
I need hardly say that he also read much. What and 
how he read shall be described in words of his own, 
written long years before, and true to the end : — 

" The books of a speculative man lie open quite 
tranquilly before him, the page turns slowly — they are 
the things that set his own thoughts in motion, and 
with those thoughts, whether the books lie there or 
not, he is chiefly engaged. What he reads is all along 
so mingled with and modified by his own reflections, 
that at the end of his labours he can scarcely tell what 
was his own and what the author's. The written words 
on the page have been like music to a thoughtful man, 
which prompts and accompanies his long reverie, but 
itself is little heeded. Even when heeded most, and 
carefully weighed and scrutinized, the words he reads 
are still the mere utterance of a thought that has thus 
been carried to him ; they are not the utterance of this 
or that man, and bear on them nothing of motive or 
character. Whilst the historian, in proportion as he 
prosecutes his labours, recalls and re-animates some 
scene of past existence, and adds detail to detail till it 
almost appears to be again a portion of the living world, 
the philosophic or metaphysic labourer, who is in search 
of first principles, and is exploring with this purpose 
the furthest recesses of the human mind, departs at 
every step more completely from all detail and every 
famihar object, and gains as the result of his toil some 



220 MEMOIR. 

abstract truth, if truth it be, which after all no man 
seems to care for but himself. Like the celebrated 
traveller whose ambition it was to detect the source of 
the Nile, he leaves behind him the broad stream with 
its fertile and populous banks, whereon city and temple 
have been built — he bends his devoted course to where 
the river of life grows more and more narrow, more and 
more silent as he proceeds — and at length stands alone, 
in brief and troubled rapture over a discovery which 
may still be dubious, and in which no one participates." 
I think I may as well sum up our summer in an 
extract from an irregularly-kept diary of mine : — 
^' July the 2Sth, 1870. . . . Here we have been for 
more than four months, for half our appointed time. 
And hitherto it is passing sweetly, as former summers 
have passed in this almost home. Visits from different 
friends have been much enjoyed by me, because I have 
had my conditions of enjoyment : William has been 
well, and occupied thoroughly and energetically. . . . 
The days are all too short. And as they fly by, they 
bring an ever deepening consciousness of the peerless 
treasure of living with one so entirely beloved and 
loveable, — with so large an intellect, so gracious a 
nature ! ^ Never does word of detraction or spite cross 
his dear lips ; never is he hasty, unjust, uncandid, un- 
wise in thought or word. He ought to be an elevating 
influence. I ought to be better. We have been all 
surrounded by hay — the last fragrant cartful from the 
meadows will now be soon carried off, and of late we 
have had exquisite summer. The one apparent cloud 

1 It may be asked, — "What were the faults, the drawbacks?" I 
answer now, as I should have done then, "I do not know tliem." 



MEMOIR. 221 

over our little lives is that which darkens millions — 
this horrible, appalling war. Sometimes one feels it 
almost wrong to be so happy." 

This is the last of the happy entries in that book. 
Certainly in the early autumn my husband was for a 
while less uniformly well than usual — teased with 
nettlerash, less up to long walks. Yet there seemed 
nothing to alarm — though I remember his saying one 
day when we were talking over our Swiss rambles of 
five years before — " I could not do those things now. 
La SanU is going down." And then in his tender pity 
he instantly added, " Let us hope only very gradually." 
I cannot retrace the slow and stealthy course of his ill- 
ness. I cannot — I did so more than a year ago, and that 
account, with a few additions, shall be repeated here: — 

In the October of 1870 we were planning a week's 
visit to Coniston, not only to see the autumn beauty of 
its woods — far richer than ours in Borrowdale — but to 
renew pleasant walks and talks with our friends there. 
Everything was arranged — our lodgings secured, our 
packing done. . In the night my husband had a shiver- 
ing-fit. I foresaw a cold, feared the risk of a journey, 
and begged that the visit might be given up. But no 
cold followed, no appearance of illness of any kind. 
In November a similar shivering-fit recurred. I then 
took alarm. It seemed to me that the flooded mea- 
dows around us might have something to do with 
these attacks, — that these new symptoms, feverishness 
without a cold, were probably aguish. He consented, 
at the expiration of the term of nine months, for which 
he had taken Newton Place, to move to Aberdovey (a 



222 MEMOIE. 

sheltered sea-side spot in North Wales), instead of 
lingering on in our favourite quarters till early in 
January, as he had purposed doing. After this second 
shivering-fit on the 4th of November, William looked 
ailing for two or three days, but then seemed quite to 
recover his normal condition. The third shiver on the 
1st of December was slighter, and the following day he 
walked to Keswick and back, seven miles, without 
fatigue. The fourth attack was at Aberdovey, in the 
night of the 18th of December. This was very disap- 
pointing, and I began to fear i)lace might not have had 
to do with these shivering-fits, — that the flooded mea- 
dows were not so much in fault as some obscure con- 
stitutional cause. Yet his sweet cheerfulness, the 
alacrity of his every movement, his unimpaired ap- 
petite and bright look, — all these seemed incompatible 
with danger. From this time the records of disturbed 
nights become very frequent in my diaries. He was 
never a very good sleeper, however. While at Aber- 
dovey, he took long walks on the fine sands, encoun- 
tered the coldest east winds without the least reluctance 
or apparent injury. I had indeed hours of anxiety, 
but then from the time I gave him my heart and soul 
at Patterdale no transient ailment of his ever failed to 
make me anxious — to hint to me what anguish might 
be. While we were at Aberdovey in February there 
came another of those mysterious shivers ; yet when 
we moved to Brighton the end of that month, none of 
his friends thought him looking ill. Thinner, slightly 
thinner, he certainly was, and knew himself to be. 
Towards the end of April, after an immunity of nearly 
ten weeks, a very severe shivering-fit occurred in the 



MEMOIR. 223 

night. Yet though he looked yellow and ill the next 
day, I was less rather than more uneasy ; for I had 
now seen several of these attacks pass over him without, 
as it appeared, any material harm ensuing. I may 
mention that the tenth anniversary of our marriage 
(the 5th of March 1871) found us at Brighton. I had 
been spending three or four days with a dear friend in 
London, but returned on the Saturday, in spite of a 
great possible treat on the Sunday (luncheon with Mr. 
and Mrs. Lewes), because that Sunday was our dear 
anniversary, and I could not have borne it to find us 
separated. This time its return made us low. Ten 
years ! There was something solemn about the closing 
of that term. My own depression during several of 
those March days was quite unusual, and I remember 
his saying to me, " Ten years ! I used to think if I 
could have ten happy years ! And I have had them." 
And in the January of 1871 he had put in my pocket- 
book, where he always wrote my name, " One happy 
decade over — will another, will half of another, be 
granted]" Till then these inscriptions had been so 
joyous. 

We had agreed that it might be well to spend our 
next summer in a bracing climate. We resolved upon 
Ilkley in Yorkshire, and arrived there on the 11th of 
May. The place did not attract us, but still we 
thought of settling down there. Some delay in accept- 
ing his offer on the part of our landlady gave us time 
to revert in thought to our dear Borrowdale. The fact 
of the shivering-fits having recurred thrice by the sea 
had removed from our minds all suspicion of Lake- 
country climate having to do with them. My husband 



224 MEMOIR, 

assured me he thought he should be quite as well there; 
that possibly Ilkley might prove too cold in autumn. 
I do believe his kind wish that I should enjoy the 
society of dear friends who were to spend their summer 
in Borrowdale influenced him ; but oh, I am sure that 
/ had no wish that could even exist in presence of my 
absorbing wish that he should be in the best place for 
his own health and enjoyment ! But we neither of us 
took to Ilkley. He seemed well, but not peculiarly 
well there. Never shall I forget one misty grey even- 
ing when we stood watching the sun set behind the 
low hills, and he, his dear eyes fixed wistfully on the 
west, said, as though thinking aloud, " The summers 
will be few." I think, however, this was less the 
language of definite apprehension than of that vague 
yearning melancholy we all know. When the die was 
cast, the charm of the moors began a little to gain 
upon us ; but we could not have secured a house to 
his taste, and he was even more pleased than I to find 
himself again in the old home, the favourite study. 
Eleven days of intense enjoyment succeeded. He at 
once sat down to the little desk in the old corner, and 
rapidly wrote the last article of his that ever appeared 
in BlackwoodJs Magazine — one on the ' Coming Race.' 
I remember his saying one day as he laid down the 
book, " I should not wonder if it was written by Buh 
wer." I occupied myself meanwhile with giving to the 
little room where I sat during his busy morning hours, 
more of a home look than heretofore (indeed, we planned 
making Newton Place more of a permanent home, and 
collecting there all our small and scattered possessions), 
and so I sent for books long left in Edinburgh, for 



MEMOIR. 225 

William's bust, etc. We had blissful walks to see all 
his favourite haunts in their fresh beauty ; we were 
never more gaily, light-heartedly happy. On the even- 
ing of the 5 th of June I walked into Keswick, and on 
the way back I met him. He was coming along so very 
quickly, looked so boyish, I may sa}^, in figure and tread, 
I could hardly believe at a distance it was he ; but soon 
I saw the white teeth shine out — saw the radiant smile 
that always greeted me, and never more fully realized 
the old ever-new joy of putting my arm through his, 
and hearing and telling all that an interval of three 
hours (a long interval to my consciousness) had brought 
for each. He had had a visit from his friend Dr. 
Lietch. " Did Dr. Lietch think him looking well V 
" Yes ; he had noticed that he seemed in very good 
health." That verdict was another delight. There 
was nothing to disquiet me that summer evening ! In 
the night a very protracted shivering-fit came on. The 
following day he was really ill. And now began a period 
of restless wretchedness, upon which I hardly know how 
to dwell — restless wretchedness of my own only ; for 
while fever-fit followed fever-fit, and began visibly to 
sap his strength, he never admitted that there was any 
necessity for alarm, and strenuously resisted advice or 
change of place. In a letter to a niece written at this 
time, I mention that when most suffering he would only 
stroke my face and say, " I am so sorry for you.'" But 
a remarkable strength of will pitted itself against the 
malady. He would not give in. After a sleepless 
night (burning skin and flying pulse) he would still rise 
early, still take his cold bath, still carry on all the habits 
of health — even to the sitting at the desk and trying 

P 



226 MEMOIR. 

hard to read and think as usual. I fear I wearied him 
with supplications and prayers that he would go to 
some milder climate, and above all consult some first- 
rate physician. For my own fears were now fully 
roused, and I thought this obscure disease might yet be 
taken in time — if not, that the dear life would be thrown 
away. During these miserable weeks we had flying 
visits from four friends who loved and valued him so 
truly they could not resist coming over from London, 
Wales, etc., to form their own impressions of his case. 
Of these friends two were gravely apprehensive, one was 
sanguine of recovery, and the other, though anxious, 
because of the obscurity of the case, could not trace any 
signs of actual danger. There was no suffering at this 
or any time, except, indeed; the malaise of fever, of which 
he still made light. Daily, he went out, often took the 
drive to Keswick in a public car. In the open air he 
always felt and looked comparatively well. From the 
24th of July to the 26th of September, although the 
hands were often hot and dry, and the nights much dis- 
turbed by the cough which attended lying on the right 
side, there was no shivering-fit ; he improved in appear- 
ance, and every one thought he was quite recovering. 
Even I was hopeful; even to me the old joy returned in 
great measure. At the end of September came two 
shivering fits, but they were not succeeded by illness, 
and October passed over us bringing, as it seemed, still 
further amendment. His mental energy was unimpaired, 
his power of writing,^ his spirits, had entirely returned ; 

^ It was during this happy respite that William wrote his last article 
— on Mr. Greg's Political Essays. Originally intended for the Maga- 
zine, with the views of which, however, it was not found quite in 
accord — it appeared in the Contemporary of June 1872. I give its 



MEMOIR. 227 

the most marked difference was that he did not run up- 
stairs two steps at a time, as till this summer he had 
invariably done. A dear friend who had not seen him 
for more than a year, and who now paid us a brief 
visit, saw nothing in his ajjpearance to alarm, was not 
even struck with his increased thinness, and I believe 
secretly thought my accounts of his illness had been 
exaggerated by affection. But it is affection that is 
clear-sighted. 

Early in November William caught cold. It did not 
threaten to be even a severe cold ; but just when I was 

closing paragraphs, — a fitting last utterance for one always so reverent 
of labour, and so interested in the progress of the labouring classes : — 

" No one doubts, we presume, that in spite of fluctuating or oscil- 
lating movements, or long-stationary periods, there is observable 
thi'ough the past ages a progress of humanity. And since this progress, 
speaking broadly, is one with the enlarged scope and increased activity 
of the human mind, and especially with that activity which increases 
actual knowledge of nature and ourselves, and since this mental activity 
cannot be expected to come suddenly to an end, since the increase of 
knowledge, especially of external nature, seems at this hour to be ad- 
vancing with accelerated speed, Ave may surely predict that there is yet 
a course of progressive development lying before us. Of what precise 
nature, it would indeed be hazardous to predict. The knowledge yet 
to be acquired, the additional inventions and expedients of a future 
age, its modified passions, its new sentiments, cannot be known to us 
now. But we know that scientific knowledge, as a general riile, leads 
to improvements in industrial art, and thus multiplies those products 
which render life agreeable and civilized. A larger number enjoying 
all those advantages of temperate pleasure and healthful occupation, 
of amenity of manners and culture of mind, which only a minority 
enjoys at present — this alone would be an immense progress, and this 
we may venture to prophesy. 

" It is as if the student of botany and vegetable physiology had the 
groTAiih of a plant exhibited before him up to a certain point, and had 
to predict Jww it would grow on. Something he has gathered of the 
laws of vegetable growth, and he doubts not that it will grow higher 
and put forth fresh leaves like those which it has already produced. 
But let us say this plant has not yet blossomed, how is he to fore- 



228 MEMOIR. 

rejoicing over its passing away, on the night of the 9th 
a terrible shivering-fit came on. From this time his 
illness — I can now see — steadily advanced. But while 
what is the irrevocable past was still the fluctuating 
present, there were gleams of hope. O how many 
hopes I was called upon to surrender ! He now began 
to lay more stress upon this persistent fever than he 
had ever before consented to do, and to notice the 
decline of his strength. He consented to leave Borrow- 
dale for Brighton on the 1st of December; sea-air we 
thought might be of use, and there further advice was 

tell what the blossom will be, or what the last fruit will be ? The 
student of humanity is in some such position. He has half the growth 
before him ; how is he to predict the other half ? Precisely he cannot. 
But he, too, knows something of the laws or method of human growth. 
Like the botanist, he can say of this plant that it will grow higher, 
and expand its branches, and multiply its leaves. What if there is a 
blossom and a fruitage yet to come ? Of that he can say nothing. An 
evolution still in the future cannot enter into science, since it does not 
enter into knowledge at all. 

'' Even this superficial and rapid survey of what maybe acquired by 
studying man in history, may indicate how such acquisitions may aid 
or guide or console us, when we are involved in certain of our social 
and political problems. We find the artisan and the labourer urging 
their claim to be admitted within the inner circle of civilized life. They 
urge it rudely, perhaps prematurely ; they occasion alarm and con- 
sternation by their clamour and their threats. Nevertheless that they 
do urge their claim is a good augury. . It is the right desire, and indi- 
cates that some step has been already made towards its fulfilment. 
And that general progress of society in art and knowledge, on Avhich 
we can most securely calculate, is of such a nature as to guarantee its 
future fulfilment. The movement is one not to be absolutely and 
resolutely opposed, but the statesman's task is to moderate, guide, 
and render it safe. Task hard enough, it must be admitted. Much 
turmoil and many terrors will probably attend the movement. But 
if ultimately what is most refined and enjoyable in human life should 
be participated in by the hand-worker as well as the head-worker, this 
would not only be the extension of culture and happiness, but it 
would put our civilisation on a broader and safer basis." 



MEMOIR. 229 

to be had. He bore the journey well, slept well 
during our one night in London, and when we got to 
Brighton about two the following day, went as usual 
down to the shore, just to have a peep at the sea before 
our three-o'clock dinner, while I prepared his sister-in- 
law and loving nieces for his look of extreme illness ; 
for the repeated feverish attacks during November had 
reduced him extremely, and the complexion was dark 
and sallow. Still the bright, sweet smile, that only got 
brighter and sweeter to the last, the animated manner, 
and above all, the interest he took in everything and 
everybody but his own self and his own state, prevented 
his friends from realizing that he was dangerously ill. 
He was disappointed to find that instead of strengthen- 
ing him, Brighton seemed rather to weaken, and some- 
times he regretted that he had left the Lake-country 
home. But still, during December, he was able to walk 
three miles and more. However, since change of place 
did not work improvement, he did consent to see a 
medical friend, — one who knew his constitution, and 
took the kindliest interest in his case. Here was the 
rising of another. hope ! Tonics, opiates — these he had 
made no trial of — perhaps the system would respond to 
these ! The year ended with just a ray of light ; yet 
it was some time about its close that he one day said 
suddenly to me : " Oh, Lucy, we will go off together to 
the country, have done with medicines and doctors, and 
there we will calmly and quietly await the inevitable 
end, and we will love each other to the last." (I won- 
der now how I bore the agonizing terror of those days, 
as I should have wondered then how days of solitude 
and vain yearning such as these could be borne!) 



230 MEMOIR. 

And in my pocket-book for 1872, his last entry of my 
name is accompanied by these ominous words, " The 
new year has less of hope, but more of love and grati- 
tude, than any of its predecessors." — Tonics and opiates 
we soon found only destroyed his appetite, and did not 
avert the dreaded shivering-fits. About the middle of 
January fever began to come on every morning after 
breakfast. The nights were invariably broken ; lying 
on the right side became more and more impossible 
because of the cough induced ; but, strange to say, loss 
of sleep did not seem to make him worse ; on the con- 
trary, I often noticed that the better the night the more 
languid the day. But those anxious nights were not 
all unhappy ; he used to be not merely cheerful, but 
playful, during those sleepless hours. Nothing pro- 
voked a gesture or tone of impatience, still less a com- 
plaint; it was always the alleviations on which he 
dwelt : — How comfortable the bed, the room, the fire- 
light ! how delicious the beaten-up egg and sherry; 
how pleasant to have the candle lit and laid beside 
him ; how pleasant to be warmly wrapped up, and to 
have book or newspaper given him to read for an hour 
or so ! It was about the middle of January that he 
began to find the walks he had persistently taken " do 
him more harm than good," tire him overmuch, and he 
now gladly consented to the drives his dear niece Clara 
was only too happy to offer him. In the days of 
health he preferred his own light, rapid walking to the 
most luxurious of carriages ; now the daily drive with 
the sweet, affectionate companion — tender to him as a 
daughter, with whom he had all the ease of a father, 
could speak or be silent at will — this became the 



MEMOIR. 231 

greatest refreshment and pleasure. Oh, I thankfully 
record everything that made this last illness easier to 
him ! In our happy days we had all, and abounded ; 
now, when we might for the first time have discovered 
that we were poor, loving hearts made their wealth 
minister to his comfort. How he used to watch for 
" the dear grey horses " ! In this way he got the fresh 
air, and saw the sea and the clouds. And when he 
came in, and had taken his luncheon, there was always 
an interval of comparative strength, and a short walk 
could still be enjoyed. It was on the night of the 2 2d 
-of January that a shivering-fit of peculiar intensity 
reduced my husband to such a degree of weakness that 
he, for the first time, allowed me to remain in the room 
to help him while dressing. For the first time I be- 
came fully aware of the extent of his emaciation, and in 
my misery I besought him to try at least what homoeo- 
pathy might avail in a case evidently not calculated for 
other treatment, — Dr. Allen, the kind friend who had 
hitherto attended him, gladly consenting. He, it ap- 
peared, had had no hope from the first. In his opinion 
the lungs were . obscurely afi'ected. Dr. Hilbers, the 
homoeopathic physician, thought the defective action of 
the heart was the chief danger. One thing was certain 
— I see it now — daihj he ivasted. In the middle ages 
it might have been supposed that his waxen eflagy 
was being slowly melted by some cruel witchcraft, so 
singular and anomalous the case. If consumption of 
the lungs, then many of its characteristic symptoms 
were wanting : no expectoration, no night-perspirations, 
no pain in the side, no physical disagreeables such as 
would have distressed his exceeding fastidious refine- 



232 MEMOIR. 

ment. Only the fever in the morning, for the hour or 
two after breakfast, when the book fell from the languid 
hand, and he dozed, oppressed by an " unaccountable 
weakness," yet always willing to rouse himself to take 
his (fortunately) tasteless medicine, to give kind looks 
and words in return, to get ready for his drive. The 
afternoons were the best part of the day — the afternoons 
and the evenings. And during these he had frequently 
visits from congenial friends. One was a Mr. Carpenter, 
a remarkable man, philosopher and philanthropist, — a 
man of most active benevolence and most fervent piety 
(not of the dogmatic kind), who had valued my husband's 
works before he came to know and still more highly 
value him. Mr. Carpenter's visits were always a plea- 
sure ; and the two would discuss politics and general 
questions with quite eager earnest. One day in Feb- 
ruary, Professor Maurice, an early friend of William's, 
not met for many years, made him a long call.-^ During 

^ My husband wrote the following account of this meeting to Miss 
Rigbye on the 15th of February, The handwriting shows how weak 
he already was : — 

"... I had an interview the other day with a clergyman of a very 
different stamp. I was honoured by a call from Professor Maurice, 
who was here in Brighton for a few days. He was looking remark- 
ably well. Old age has only improved his expression. His white 
hair and the soft expression of his eyes made a charming picture. 
Whether his physical health responded to this appearance I cannot 
say. He has the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge, 
and also a living at Cambridge. I congratulated him on a Professor- 
ship so suitable to his tastes and acquirements. ' Yes, well/ he said, 
* if any one would come to hear.' It is only in some rare cases com- 
pulsory, and young men at Cambridge pretty well limit themselves 
to what tells on their examination. This he looks upon as a great 
evil, and I have myself always humbly thought that the system of 
competitive examination was carried to a baneful extent. He re- 
gretted that the colleges for women would be regulated on the same 



MEMOIR. 233 

these winter months my husband had not only con- 
stant visits from two loved nieces, but he saw some- 
thing of three of his favourite nephews, and much 
enjoyed getting them to talk of their own lives. Never 
did he dwell upon himself — never in health, never in 
illness ! He was self-forgetting to a degree I have not 
seen nor shall see equalled. It was the childlike atti- 
tude of listener that bright intelligence usually chose 
to occupy. Yet sometimes, through all the weakness, 
there would be bursts of energy on some general sub- 
ject — a kindling of the old fervour against some social 
wrong or political blunder. Oh how hard it was to 
realize that so much light was so soon to be quenched ! 
And indeed there were some signs of improvement 
during the month of February.^ Appetite returned ; 
he enjoyed the food he took ; there were many days 
when recovery did not seem to be impossible. I had 

falsetto system as that for young men, and the ambition of standing 
first and in the first class would take the place of a real love of study 
— of knowledge for its sake ." 

^ Those who have taken an interest in this account so far — an 
account only meant, for friends— will best understand my husband's 
state from his own description of it in part of a letter to a beloved 
Edinburgh friend, Mrs, Stirling, written on the 16th of February : — 

" If you or other friends were to call on me some afternoon, you 
would find me cheerful, delighted to converse, looking fairly well. 
The debility in my limbs would not betray itself, and I should give 
the impression that I was a mere sham. You would report me very 
well. Meanwhile, this distressing debility and this haunting fever 
keep their ground, and the next day I perhaps sit like a stock or stone. 
I mention this that you may know what value to put on the too 

frequent accounts of my dear L . How kind, how anxious, how 

angelic she is ! Patience, and a more genial air flowing over me, is my 
hope. We have been stirred to think of Nairn, and I have received 
such accounts that, were it not for tlie long journey, we should close 
at once, — Yours very gratefully, W. S," 



234 MEMOIR. 

seen my mother, wlien several years older than AYil- 
liam, recover from greater prostration and apparently 
an equal amount of anomalous illness. Neither did 
Dr. Hilbers (who was kinder than I can express) forbid 
me all hope. He once spoke, in answer to a question 
of mine as to months, of my " possibly having him for 
years." Sometimes he would tell me, with a beaming 
smile, that the pulse was better, that he was " satisfied." 
I do not think, however, that I ever had any hope of 
actual recovery. I think I knew " by the love that 
was in my heart " what the end would be. But not 
how near. We had many dreams of another summer 
— talked of Ilfracombe, Aberystwith ; once of Nairn ; 
nay, once of Mentone ! I am glad he had those float- 
ing thoughts, very thankful that the knowledge of how 
ill he was was mercifully kept back, or at least was not 
abidingly present to him. Certainly he grew more 
rather than less hopeful. But then I cannot distin- 
guish between what he spontaneously felt and what he 
wished to feel out of his tender compassion for me. 
On the 19th of February we went to London together; 
he to receive his yearly dividends at the bank. The 
little trip entailed no fatigue ; and though it often 
flashed across me that it might be our last, I think we 
were both rather cheered by it. That evening we 
counted up our income for the year to come, and he 
said " that everything was pleasant done together." 
I never knew in any man quite so felicitous a blend- 
ing of generosity and prudence. "The only use of 
money is not to have to think about it," was one of 
his axioms. Eminently liberal in his repayment of all 
service rendered to him, giving whenever he could give 



MEMOIR. ' 235 

with a child-like pleasure at the moment, and then an 
absolute forgetfulness, — personal economy was I believe 
not distasteful to him. " Plain living and high think- 
ing" would have been his choke, as it was his destiny. 
In his playfulness he would tell me that when we came 
into our fortune (an imaginary £3000 a year that we 
used to argue about the disposal of), I should see how 
reformed a character he would become in the matter 
of dress ; but I feel sure the old coat, old hat, old 
slippers, would have been equally clung to, and that 
our life could not have been rendered more completely 
satisfying by any increase of means. 

On the 5th of March, the eleventh anniversary of 
our marriage, we walked together on the West Pier — 
walked briskly to and fro in the breeze and sunshine, 
and in sheltered corners stood to watch the waves. 
That evening there came to Brighton General and 
Mrs. Cotton, two of the friends in whom he most 
thoroughly delighted. General Cotton's conversation 
he always spoke of as one of the greatest enjoyments 
procurable, and her brightness and charm now seemed 
peculiarly to refresh him. They could not persuade 
themselves that the case was hopeless, so animated was 
his greeting, and by candlelight the sallow hue of his 
skin, and even the emaciation, was not startling. But 
each day now brought some slight diminution of bodily 
strength. On the 13th, while preparing for his morn- 
ing's drive, he said : " I am weaker than ever. It is 
vain to kick against the pricks." And then, with most 
pathetic playfulness, and calling himself by one of the 
myriad pet names I used in our happier days to invent 
for him, he declared he could be quite sorry for him- 



236 MEMOIK. 

self, could pity himself. I could not help saying, " And 
me ! " And oh the unutterable compassion of his voice, 
the deep tenderness that rung out in his reply, " In^ 
finitely ! infinitely ! " Then in a few moments he very 
solemnly and earnestly went on, " There is a power 
stronger than all our wishes and regrets ; we must not 
let any angry or impatient feelings creep into our 
hearts, we must quietly and patiently yield." 

On the same day we took our last walk ; sat out, 
and looked at sea and sky together for the last time. 
On Friday we moved to the house of his kind sister- 
in-law on the other side of the square. Painting was 
going on at the back of our comfortable lodgings, and 
Dr. Hilbers spoke of that as quite sufficient, in his 
weak state, to induce the symptom that now alarmed 
us, and reduced his strength still further. His sister- 
in-law was not at home, but his niece Violetta had 
already most lovingly implored him to be her guest, 
and now renewed her entreaties. 

When once the change was accomplished it was very 
affecting to notice his enjoyment of it. Sometimes, 
during the last few weeks, he had expressed his long- 
ing for a home, and now one, familiar to him for 
twenty years, and having only pleasant associations, 
was eagerly thrown ojDen to him. All its comfortable 
arrangements gave him pleasure. In the cheerful bed- 
room we occupied, pictures of his kindred hung upon 
the walls ; and thinking of the peculiarly tender love 
between him and his mother, one is glad that the last 
chair he ever sat in should have been his mother's arm- 
chair. He seemed better that first evening at No. 1, 
and when General and Mrs. Cotton came as usual to 



MEMOIR. 237 

spend it with him, told them he " felt himself in para- 
dise since his move." Yet in the night, while I lay 
silently there hoping he was asleep, he suddenly said, 
*' Your love supports me," and something in the almost 
solemn tone of the voice struck terror to my heart. 
The next day he had his breakfast in bed for the first 
time. But he enjoyed his drive, talked with animation 
to his companion, and insisted upon walking down to 
the dining-room for dinner. This too he did on the 
Sunday ; but for the last time. For now the bodily 
strength ebbed rapidly. The last drive was on Tues- 
day the 19th, when he noticed with pleasure some 
beautiful streaks of light in the afternoon sky. It was 
a cold day, and spite of all precautions he returned 
chilled, and that evening he had a shivering-fit. Till 
now these attacks had invariably come on in the night, 
and no one but myself had ever witnessed them. Oh 
what agony, for months past, witnessing them ! for I 
knew the fever and weakness that invariably succeeded 
them. Yet they never seemed to depress him. He 
would be SLctRsiilj playful during their continuance — 
always solicitous to soothe my alarm, to assure me the 
attack was passing off, would soon pass off, was less 
severe than the last. 

I do not here enumerate the remedies tried. It is 
enough to say that nothing had the least effect in check- 
ing those paroxysms of trembling and breathlessness 
with sense of internal chill. Pain there was none. 
He would entreat me not to move, to fold him closely 
in my arms ; and so, with perfect cheeriness and hope- 
fulness, thinking more of my alarm than any danger to 
himself, he bore one fever-fit after another till they had 



238 MEMOIR. 

wasted him to a shadow. On Wednesday evening he 
looked sad as the familiar shudder came on at a new 
hour. " This dashes our hopes," he said. Yet he 
took the greatest pleasure that very evening in Mrs. 
Cotton's music. Music had been one of the passions 
of his earlier days. Of late he had got weaned from 
it, having a wife who did not play ; and, indeed, even 
when the opportunity arose of gratifying the dormant 
taste, he had seemed almost reluctant to do so. But 
now that he was getting too weak for much sustained 
conversation, the ''refreshment" of the sweet, slow, 
flowing music — the only kind he wished for— -was 
keenly felt ; and this enjoyment he had for several 
evenings. It now became my privilege to wait upon 
him daily more and more. Little by little the singu- 
larly independent and self-helpful man came to permit 
his wife to do everything for him. But so perfect the 
sweetness of his nature, and so exquisite its courtesy, 
he never showed the least annoyance at this necessity : 
he even made it a pleasure. The washing and dress- 
ing—all got over in bed now — were got over in the 
cheerfullest way possible, with the gracefuUest acknow- 
ledgment of every attempt to serve. -^ It was still 
impossible not to feel happy in his presence, and I 
knew I had the rest of my life for sorrow. Yet when 
I look back to myself at that time, I almost shudder to 
think that I could be cheerful ! But he had more than 
once said to me that my cheerfulness was his greatest 

1 On one of these mornings some sudden impulse made me say : — 
" William, sucli love as mine for you cannot be the result of mere 
mechanical or vital forces, can it?" And he replied, in a tone of con- 
viction from which in my darkest hours I gain some support, " Oh 
no I It has a far higher source. " 



/ 



MEMOIR. 239 

boon and delight ; and for weeks I had had one wish 
only, — to smooth the path for him. I never spoke to 
him but with smiles, with almost gaiety, to which he 
invariably responded. His sensitive nature was pecu- 
liarly susceptible to gloomy looks, and besides, he had 
not given up all hope of recovery. On this point he 
seemed to have, so to speak, a double consciousness. 
His knowledge of physiology must have told him of 
imminent danger; and, indeed, many expressions of his 
showed that he understood his own case perfectly. Yet 
at other times there was the hopefulness that charac- 
terizes consumption. On the 20th he told me that he 
had a conviction that " when we got to the country he 
should recover ; " twice told me this during that last 
fortnight. I am thankful for every word that he uttered 
in this strain, for it seems to prove that he did not 
suffer. On Friday our dear friends General and Mrs. 
Cotton left, and he missed and regretted them. But he , 
continued to see friends to the last. Indeed, his nature , / 
seemed to grow more and more genial and gracious, j / 
more demonstrative of affection. The smile of welcome 
was warmer and as bright as ever. The dear nieces 
never had so many sweet and loving words to garner 
up in their hearts as during this last winter. For me 
he had a boundless tenderness and pity. I have , 
memories of love and blessing too sacred to my sorrow I / 
to be recorded here. I had thought I might give more J 
of his gracious sayings. But I could not give the look, 
the tone ; it is best, as he once wrote of words of 
mine, to let them " just sink into the silence of one's 
heart." Yet those who value him as he deserved will 
be glad to know that even his exceeding humility did 



240 MEMOIR. 

not prevent his realizing that he was, and had long 
been, the object of an exceptional affection. On one of 
our last days he said to me, " Yours is a great love. I 
do not believe there ever was such another." And 
another saying of his will prove that however inferior 
to him, his constant companion was still sufficing. 
During one of the last nights, fixing the large dark 
eyes — always beautiful, but never so beautiful as now — 
very earnestly on mine, he said, " I think you and I 
should make a happy world if we were the only two 
in it." 

On the morning of Tuesday the 26 th Mr. Carpenter 
saw him. They talked politics, discussed the Budget, 
and my husband's mind was clear and keen as ever. 
Mr. Carpenter did not think he was bidding him good- 
bye for the last time, though he blessed him, rejoicing, 
as he said, to see '^ so bright a face." 

Even on Wednesday William rose at the usual hour, 
walked resolutely down-stairs, finished the third number 
of 'Middlemarch,' which he had read during the last few 
days with steady determination, listened to a " beauti- 
fully written " and very kind note from the author, saw 
his dear niece Clara and both doctors — for now Dr. 
Allen came as an invaluable friend, and for the last two 
evenings helped to carry him up-stairs. Wednesday 
night was one of very high fever and of some delirium. 
I was alone with him (always alone at night), and even 
though distressed by vague dream-like fancies that we 
were in an enemy's country, and amenable to some 
punishment there, the " sweet reasonableness " of his 
nature prevailed even then, and he showed me how we 
must make the best of our situation. And he was 



MEMOIR. 241 

easily recalled, and always knew me. But the high 
fever had done its work. The following morning, 
Thursday the 28th, he told me he did not mean 
to attempt to rise. I cannot retrace the hours of this 
last day. It seemed as though he who hitherto had 
retained some enjoyment and hope of life, now all at 
once knew that he was to die, and equally acquiesced 
in it ! His perfect calm, his habitual manner, were not 
for one moment disturbed. It was of others he still 
thought throughout. He alluded to the " melancholy 
of it" for "poor Eebecca" (his sister-in-law) in the 
half-playful manner he might have had on any other 
day. Throughout these hours of the last weariness he 
used some of our words for different things, — for we 
had a language of our own, as I said before. But for 
me he had tones of tender pity. For me he " grieved 
deejply, deeply. He could have wished to live for my 
sake more than for his own." And then in some 
connexion that has escaped me, though I strain my 
memory often to recall it, but I think in answer to 
some cry of anguish, and with a wish to give me still 
something to live for, with a thrilling earnestness of 
voice and far-off gaze I shall surely remember till I die : 
" And if there be a further sphere for us, it must be 
our part to prepare ourselves for it." For Violetta, his 
" sweetest of hostesses," as he called her, he had the 
most gracious solicitude. " Was she quite well 1 were 
we eating enough % " The mind was unclouded 
throughout. He listened to letters, talked of dic- 
tating a reply to one. The voice grew indistinct and 
the sentences broken ; but I do not believe there was 
the least confusion of mind. I add a few sentences 

Q 



242 MEMOIR. 

jotted down while the blow still stunned, and the agony 
was still felt : — " Throughout the day he kept telling 
me he ' was doing well,' ' was doing very well/ and once 
I heard the words, ^ Quite normal/ as though he were 
watching himself die. Once I saw the hands clasped 
as in a speechless communion with the Unseen, and 
twice I caught the solemn word God, uttered not in a 
tone of appeal or entreaty, but as if the supreme con- 
templation which had been his very life meant more, 
revealed more than ever. When I said to him, ' Oh 
what a grace of patience God has given you ! ' he shook 
his head in gentle deprecation. . . . 

" Dear Vi was of course necessarily called out of the 
room to provide for his wants, and thus I had the 
privilege of never leaving him. God bless her for it. 
. . . When my angel hardly seemed conscious, when 
the eyes were half-closed and the open lips were parched 
and pale (he was averse to having them moistened, and 
had said ' Let me rest '), I dared to lay mine on them 
and say, ' Your miserable wife ! ' I did not hope for 
the response that came — three little kisses, and the 
whispered word ' Blessing.' Some time in the day, 
when I implored him to give me that blessing, he had 
said in his sweet natural way, ' I only wish it was better 
worth.' But he gave it then. It was not far from 
the end when opening his eyes and seeing Vi and me 
beside him, he had quite in a cheerful tone said, ' There 
they are, the two dear creatures.' Later — as I bent 
over him — he opened his eyes, and with the same smile 
as in health and happiness, bright, inexpressibly tender, 
Cy ^6 took my face into his hand'. — twice did so. This 

old familiar caress was the farewell. 



MEMOIR. 243 

" After his last spoonful of turtle, which Vi gave 
while I raised him, the ijeculiar sound in the throat 
came on, but it had no horror, no intensity about it, 
and did not to either of us convey the fact that he was 
about to go. After that the laboured breathing changed 
its character. Violetta was called away. I was quite 
alone with my love. I got on the bed behind him, the 
better to prop him in what seemed an easy sleep — the 
hands and feet still warm. His head passed gradually 
from the pillow to my breast, and there the cherished 
head rested firmly ; the breathing grew gentler and 
gentler. Never shall I forget the great awe, the brood- 
ing presence with which the room was filled. My 
heart leapt wildly with a new sensation, but it was not 
fear. Only it would have seemed profane to utter even 
my illimitable love, or to call upon his name. This 
must have lasted, Yi thinks, not more than ten minutes, 
the head grew damp and very heavy ; my arms were 
under him. Then the sleep grew quite quiet, and as 
the church-clock began to strike ten I caught a Kttle, 
little sigh, such as a new-born infant might give in 
waking — not a tremor, not a thrill of the frame ; and 
then Yi came back with Clara's nurse (who having a 
peculiar love and admiration for him I had said might 
come up). I told them he was gone, and I thanked God 
for the perfect peace in which he passed away. ..." 

He was buried in the Brighton Cemetery, in a spot at 
present still secluded, and over which the larks sing 
joyously. There a plain grey granite headstone rises 
" to his pure and cherished memory," with just his 
name and two dates, and this one line, long associated 



244 MEMOIR. 

with him in my mind, and which all who knew him 
have felt to be appropriate — 

" His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." 
Only four went to his funeral, viz., Clara's husband, 
General Cotton, and Mr. Carpenter (whom he had taken 
pleasure in introducing to each other as " two of the 
noblest men he knew"). Dr. Allen, his kind friend of 
years. There were no mourning trappings — peculiarly 
discordant with the idea of him — only the carriage with 
" the dear grey horses " followed, and in it hearts that 
valued him. A clergyman who had known him, not long 
but well, in our Borrowdale home, asked whether he 
might come and read the Service. This will show the 
feelings my husband inspired in those whose tlioughts 
were not his. Indeed, I never knew a high moral nature 
that did not at once recognise the purity, righteousness, 
and holiness of his. In the case of all such the sense 
of differing opinions melted away under the influence of 
his character. To men of negative views, the j)Ossibility 
of a future life seemed to acquire a deeper interest now 
that he had passed away ; to those whose faith in im- 
mortality was firmest, the conception of spiritual enjoy- 
ment became all the clearer for having known one so 
spiritually-minded, so purely searching after the truth. 
I might multiply testimonies to this effect, but they are 
not needed here. If, however, the appreciation of the 
cultivated and thoughtful seem a mere matter of course, 
it was yet not more marked or more unfailing than the 
love he, shy and silent towards them, won from all the 
simple and uneducated who were brought into frequent 
contact with him. Something in his courtesy elevated 
them, something in his brightness cheered. I do not 



MEMOIR. 245 

think any person wlio ever spoke to him half-a-dozen 
times was quite indifferent to him. No man sought 
love less, or was less careful about the impression he 
made on others. But love unsought came largely to 
him, and during his last illness I think he discovered 
with something of sweet and tender surprise how very 
dear he was to many ! It was, I dare to believe, a 
gentle, a cheerful last illness ! Of him every memory is 
sweet and elevating ; and I record it here, that a life- 
long anguish such as defies words, is yet not too high a 
price to pay for the privilege of haidng loved him and 
belonged to him. 

This was written a year and a half ago, and I have 
nothing to add. I might indeed cite the testimony of 
relations and friends to some ineffable charm in his 
nature, ineffable tenderness in their regret. But I 
prefer closing this brief memoir with words of his — 
and the passage I am about to quote contains, I believe, 
the very secret of his pure life and the ground of his 
serenity in death : — 

" There comes a time when neither Fear nor Hope 
are necessary to the pious man ; but he loves right- 
eousness for righteousness' sake, and love is all in all. 
It is not joy at escape from future perdition that he 
now feels ; nor is it hope for some untold happiness 
in the future : it is a present rapture of piety, and 
resignation, and love ; a present that fills eternity. It 
asks nothing, it fears nothing; it loves and it has. 
no petition to make. God takes back His little child 
unto Himself — a little child that has no fear, and is 
all trust." 



APPENDIX. 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WILLIAM SMITH TO 
'' BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE." 



1839. August, . 
October, . 

1840. January, . 
February, 
June, , , . 
September, 
December, , 

1841. March, . . 

1842. May, . . . 
June, . . . 
September,. 

jj 
October, . 

1843. March, . . 
May, . . . 

July, . . . , 
October, . . 

1844. June, . . . , 
August, . , 

September, , 
November, . 



A Prosing upon Poetry. 
On the Feigned Madness of Hamlet. 
Hints on History, Part 1. 
Do. do. Part 2. 

Wild Oats — A New Species. 
The Boundary Question. 
On Population (a Review of Alison). 
Wordsworth. 
Gabrielle de Belle Isle. 
Angelo. 

Dennis on Shakespeare. 
History ofFrance (Review of Michelet) Parti. 
Do. do. Part 2. 

Comte. 

Dumas on Italy. 
Leap Year : A Tale. 
Past and Present, by Carlyle. 
Mill's Logic. 

The Diligence : A Leaf from a Journal. 
Some Remarks on Schiller's Maid of Orleans. 
M. Girardin. 
M. Louis Blanc. 
French Socialists. 



248 



APPENDIX. 



1845. February, . 


, The Superfluities of Life. 


April, . . . 


Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. 


June, . . . . 


The Novel and the Drama. 


July, . . . 


. Torquato Tasso (Goethe's). 


August, . , 


. On Punishment. 


September, 


. Warren's Law Studies. 


October, . , 


Manner and Matter : A Tale. 


November, . 


Hakem the Slave : A Tale. 


December, , 


. The Mountain and the Cloud. 


1846. December, 


. Mildred : A Tale. Part 1. 


1847. January, . , 


Do. do. Part 2. 


February, , 


Do. do. Part 3. 


April, . . . 


Cromwell. 


May, . . . . 


The Visible and Tangible : A Metaphysical 




Fragment. 


July, . . . 


. Sir H. Nicolas's History of the Navy. 


August, . 


, Grote's History of Greece. 


September, 


. Le Premier Pas. 


55 


Byways of History. 


»? 


Giacomo da Valencia ; or, the Student of 




Bologna. 


October, . , 


. Works of Hans Christian Andersen. 


November, 


. The American Library. 


December, 


. Emerson. 


1848. June, . . . . 


, Guesses at Truth. 


October, . 


. J. S. Mill's Political Economy. 


December, . 


, Mrs. Hemans. 


1849. March, . . 


. M. Prudhon, Contradictions Economiques. 


April, . . , 


. Tennyson's Poems. 


May, . . . 


. Colonization ; Mr. Wakefield's Theory. 


August, . , 


. Charles Lamb. 


October, . , 


. Physical Geography (Mrs. Somerville). 


1850. January, . 


. Howard. 


February, 


. Goldsmith. Part 1. • 


March, . . , 


Do. Part 2. 


jj 


A Late Case of Court-Martial. 


April, . . , 


, Festus. 


September, , 


, The Night Side of Nature. 



APPENDIX. 



249 



1851. March, . . 
April, . . . 
May, . . . 
August, . 
September, 
October, , 
November, 

1852. March, . . 
May, . . . 
September, 
October, . 



1854. Jamiary, . 
February, 
March, . . 

?? 

1855. March, . . 
April, . . 

August, . 

1856. March, . . 
April, . . 

1858. January, . 
March, . . 
August, . 

November, 

1859. July, . . . 
August, . 
October, . 
November, 

December, 

1860. August, . 
October, . , 

1861. February, 



. Southey. Part 1. 
Do. Part 2. 

. Some American Poets. 
. Voltaire in the Crystal Palace. 
. Mr. Ruskin's Works. 
. The Essays of Mr. Helps. 
. The Dramas of Henry Taylor. 
. Miss Mitford's Pecollections. 
. Life of Niebuhr. 
. Jeffrey. Part 1. 
. Do. Part 2. 

Corneille and Shakespeare. 

Eeview of Sortain's Count Arenberg. 

Dr. Chalmers as Political Economist. 
. Landor's Last Fruit off an Old Tree. 
, G-ray's Letters. 
, The Epidemics of the Middle Ages. 

Jerome Cardan. 

Life of Lord Metcalfe. 
, Sir Benjamin Brodie's Psychological In- 
quiries. 
, Warren's Blackstone. 

Liddell's History of Rome. 

Prescott's Philip the Second. 

Debit and Credit. 

Sullivan on Cumberland. 

Gladstone's Homer. 

White's Eighteen Christian Centuries. 

Buckle's History of Civilisation. 

Dr. Mansel's Bampton Lectures. 

Leaders of the Reformation. 

Sir William Hamilton. 

Vaughan's Revolutions in English History, 
vol. i. 

Motley's Dutch Republic. 

Dr. Hanna's Wycliffe and the Huguenots. 

Charles Hemans on Papal Government. 

Carthage and its Remains. 
R 



250 






APPENDIX. 



1861. May, .... Motley's History of the Netherlands, 
June, .... Miss Bremer in Switzerland and Italy. 
August, . . Vaughan's Revolutions in English History, 

vol. ii. 
November, . M. Ernest E,enan. 

1862. May, .... Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.* 

1863. January, . . T. TroUope's Italian Novels. 
April, . . . Spedding's Life of Bacon. 
May, .... Wilson's Prehistoric Man. 
September, . Jean Paul Biehter. 
October, . . Sheridan Knowles. 
December, . Tyndall on Heat. 

1864. February, . Kirk's Charles the Bold. 
April, . . . Mr. Knight's Reminiscences. 
August, . . Mr. Lewes's Aristotle. 

„ Victor Hugo's Shakespeare. 

October, . . Max MiiUer's Lectures on the Science of 
Language, 2d Series, 

1865. March, . . . William Blake. 

1866. May, , . . . J. S. MiU on Sir William Hamilton. 

„ Scraps of Verse from a Tourist's Journal. 

June, .... Life of Steele, 

1867. February, , Dallas's Gay Science. 
March, . . . Ferrier. 

April, .... Hemans's Ancient Christianity. 
June, .... The Duke of Argyll's Beign of Law. 
'September, . La Physique Moderne (Saigey). 

1868. July, .... Motley's History of the Netherlands. 
November, . Lewes's History of Philosophy. 
December, . Dean Milman. 

1870. July, .... Lecky's History of Morals. 
November, . Professor Porter on The Human Intellect. 

1871, July, .... The Coming Race. 



PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY 
AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS. 



Deaciditied using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 177 946 A 



.i:1 



